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CASKEY'S BOOK, 



LECTURES ON GREAT SUBJECTS, SELECTED FROM THE NUMEROUS 

EFFORTS OF THAT POWiKFU^ ORATOR AND NOBLE 

VETERAN OF THE CROSS, 

THOMAS W. CASKEY. 



^ Chaplain G. G. MULLINS, U. S. A. 



EDITED BY 



" He that battles for the Truth, fights not for country — but for the world ! " 

*' And now the ax is laid unto the root of the trees : therefore every tree which 
bringcth not forth good fruit is hewn do\vn, and cast into the fire." 



ST. LOUIS: 



JOHN BURNS PUBLISHING 

1884. 




Jul Zv *:^^--^ir 







Copyrighted, 1884, 
By JOHN BURNS PUBLISHING CO. 



TO MY WIFE 

THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

AS A TOKEN OF THE 

author's APPRECIATION OF HER MANY CHRISTIAN VIRTUES. 

TO HER PRECIOUS SYMPATHY, 

HER PATIENCE, FORTITUDE AND EVER BRIGHT-EYED FAITH — 

MORE THAN TO ALL ELSE ON EARTH — 

IS HE GRATEFULLY INDEBTED FOR WHATEVER OF GOOD HE HAS 

done; for whatever of good HE NOW IS — * 

AND FOR ALL THE GOOD 

HE HOPES TO SHARE WITH HER AT LAST 

FOREVER IN HEAVEN. 



PEBPAOE, 



In this age of book-making, without end, perhaps, it is 
due to the public and to the author that a reason be given 
for this production. 

Some fifteen years ago he was urged by friends and 
brethren to leave in less perishable form than spoken words 
some of his thoughts, which they esteemed worth preserva- 
tion. 

Among these friends was the lamented Pres. T. Fanning, of 
Tennessee, who obtained a promise from the writer to bring 
out a book, before crossing over the cold river. 

The promise was renewed from time to time to other par- 
tial brethren. But years rolled by, and the author still 
delayed — distrusting his ability to put any thoughts on 
paper which would interest readers, and help the cause he 
loved. Such was the estimate he himself placed upon his 
fugitive pieces, sermons, and addresses, that he never pre- 
served a vestige of any of them. 

At last, stirred up and constrained by scores of brethren, 
I have found courage and patience to write out my book. 

Could the reader know of the long days of mental and 
bodily toil, the sleepless night hours spent in its anxious 

(5) 



6 PREFACEa 

preparation, the author would be given sympathy and con- 
gratulation, and not frog-blooded croaking criticism. 

This is the child of my old age — please handle it ten- 
derly ! 

I desire to express deep gratitude to my Editor ; but he 
won't let me. 

He has shown a lively interest in the work from even before 
its commencement, and has carefully performed the labor of 
reviewing and correcting my somewhat rough manuscript. 

My imperfect graduation at "Anvil College " left me very 
liable to make mistakes in my composition. These charac- 
teristics were not necessary to my individual identity ; and 
the Chaplain was detailed to muster them out. Upon him, 
too, was imposed the task of naming the baby; and he 
insisted upon calling it simply " Caskey's Book.*' Well, 
that is just What it is, and nothing more. 

To other good brethren, too numerous to mention, who 
gave aid and sympathy, I tender thanks of a grateful heart. 

And now I am embarrassed. To hundreds of subscribers 
for this book, explanation and apology must be offered for 
falling a little short in the number of pages promised. 

If you knew what pain in my hand I had to endure while 
penning the manuscript, you could not censure me for not 
holding out longer. 

However, I give you something you did not bargain for -^ 
a handsome picture of myself ! So many friends asked for 
the *' old familiar face," that I consented to incur the addi- 
tional expense. 



PREFACE. 7 

To them the face will compensate for the lack of pages — 
unless beauty has lost its power to charm. 

To other subscribers I would say, examine the book, with- 
out looking at the picture, and if you decide that it is not 
worth the money — why, send it back, and I will refund. If 
you look at the picture, I won't do it — as you would then 
be getting something for nothing ! 

If you have a vivid fancy, and will close your eye, as 
much beauty as you desire will beam forth from the face. If 
your imagination is not brilliant, it is your misfortune, and 
not my fault. Don't try it with your eyes open ! 

And now, in bidding " Good-bye ! " to my book, a feeling 

of sadness o'er my spirit steals. I fondly hope that it may 

be read ; and that it will yield pleasure and profit to the 

readers. 

T. W. Casket. 
Greenville, Texas, May, 1884. A. D. 



..;.'»* 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

Introduction 9 

CHAPTER I. 
Biographical Sketch . „ 11 

CHAPTER II. 
Infidelity — What Is It , .25 

CHAPTER III. 

Who do Men Say that I the Son of Man Am? . . . 38 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Miraculous Character of Christ, Erom the Trini- 
tarian and Unitarian Standpoints . . . . . 52 

CHAPTER V. 
Christ in Prophecy 60 

CHAPTER VI. 

Christ from the Divine, the Human, and the Demoniacal 

Standpoints 74 

CHAPTER VII. 

Christ Viewed AS THE Great Sacrifice . . . .86 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Power of a Thought ....... 99 

CHAPTER IX. 
Resurrection . . . . . , . . . . 113 

(9) 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. PAGE 

Resurrection, No. 2; Or, Infidelity Met on Its own 
Chosen Ground o . 124 

CHAPTER XI. 
A Lecture Against Deism . . . . . . .335 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Church ., = ... 147 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Church, No. 2 .160 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Commemorative Days and Institutions .... 178 

CHAPTER XV. 
Commemorative Institutions ....... 189 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Design op Punishment . . . . . , .199 

CHAPTER XVII, 
The Design oe Punishment, No. 2 213 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Getting Religion ; or, the Modern Mourning Bench . 228 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Direct and the Indirect 252 

CHAPTER XX. 
The Direct and Indirect, No. 2 262 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Saved by Grace 274 

CHAPTER XXII. 
An Old Preacher's Experience 286 



y 




CHAPTEK I. 

T. W. CASKEY, FORT WORTH, TEXAS. 

^HE grandparents of the subject of the following sketch 
emigrated from Ireland a few years before the Revolu- 
tionary struggle. His grandfather was a tiller of the 

^^i soil, until his adopted country called him to arms, 
which he bore through the entire struggle with credit to himself 
and freedom to his country. He then laid down his arms and 
resumed his occupation as a tiller of the soil. They had four 
sons and one daughter — George, Thomas, Samuel, Robert, 
and Elizabeth, born in Lancaster district, South Carolina, 
where they first settled. 

Their sons were all over six feet high, and all followed 
their father's occupation. After the death of their parents, 
at the advanced age of ninety-seven and ninety-eight, the 
sons and daughter moved from South Carolina to Maury 
County, Tennessee, about the year 1810. They were all in- 
dustrious, respectable, and well-to-do farmers'; raised their 
children to habits of industry and economy, and closed 
their lives in peace. 

Their children were scattered in different States. Thomas, 
the father of Elder Caskey, the second son of his parents, 
was born in Lancaster district. South Carolina, in the year 
1789. At the age of twenty he married Miss Mary Coffee 
in the year 1809. They had four children — three sons and 
one daughter — Hugh C. , John M. , Susan L. , Thomas W. 
The elder son, Hugh C, was born in South Carolina in 1810, 
when his father moved to Tennessee and settled in Maury 

(11) 



12 casket's book. 

County, in which and the adjoining county, Williamson, he 
spent his long and useful life. His leading characteristics 
were integrity and industry, economy and deep-toned 
piety. He was a man of strong native mind, and strong 
well-built, healthy body. He was six feet two inches 
in height. He was an elder in the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church for more than forty years. By his industry 
he reared his cJiildren in comfort, and accumulated a com- 
petency sufficient to render his old age comfortable. He 
died in the full assurance of faith, in 1873. 

The mother of Elder Caskey was a daughter of Hugh M. 
and Margaret Coffee. Their parents came from Ireland. 
They had three children — Hugh M. , Jr. , Susan and Mary, 
the mother of Mr. Caskey. They also moved from South Caro- 
lina to Tennessee ; lived and died in Maury County. Their 
lives were marked by industry, frugality, honesty, and in- 
tegrity of character. They passed away at an advanced 
age. 

Their son Hugh, when quite a young man, left his father's 
home to try his fortune in Louisiana, where he accumulated 
wealth, acquired considerable reputation in political life, 
and was a leading man in all enterprises for the good of his 
state and county. He was lost on the ill-fated "Princess," 
in 1859, at the age of sixty-five. He died childless. Susan 
married Mr. Samuel Stephenson in Maury County, Tennessee. 
They had three children one son and two daughters. She 
discharged her duties of sister, wife and mother faithfully, 
and then fell asleep at the age of sixty-five. Mary, mother 
of Elder Caskey, was said to be a lady of beauty and talent. 
She died in giving birth to Thomas W. , her youngest son, 
who was born in Maury County, near what is now Spring 
Hill, on the 12th of January, 1816. Hugh C, the eldest 
son mentioned above, left his father's home when he was 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 13 

twenty years old, at the request of his uncle H. M. Coffee, 
then living on his plantation in Louisiana, opposite the 
G-rand Gulf, Mississippi, for whom he superintended for 
several years. By industry, energy, and perseverance, he 
accumulated a handsome property; was twice married, 
having one child by each wife — a daughter by the first, and 
a son by the last. He died on his plantation near Lake 
Providence, Louisiana in 1845. The second son, John M., 
lived and died in the same county in which he was born ; 
learned the blacksmith trade, which he followed through his 
life. At the age of twenty-two he married Miss Vinie 
Moore, and had two children — one son and one daughter — 
both of whom are dead. He died in 1850. Susan 
married Mr. J. B. Childress in 1832, by whom she had 
four children — one son and three daughters. Her hus- 
band died of consumption in 1840, leaving her to support 
her four children, the youngest, her son James, being two 
years old. With her needle she clothed, fed, and educated 
them. Her daughters all married well ; only one of them 
now living. Her son James B., by more than ordinary 
talent, energy, and enterprise, worked his way up from post- 
office boy to places of position and power in business life. 
He at one time filled the position of clerk of the Supreme Court 
of Tennessee — salary ten thousand dollars per annum — 
was exceedingly popular, and his prospects were bright for 
political as well as financial success. But the same fell de- 
stroyer that laid his father in the grave, blighted his pros- 
pects and destroyed his usefulness. He still lingers on the 
shore of time. Two sisters of his have already crossed 
" over the river." 

The early boyhood days of Elder Caskey were spent as 
boyhood days usually are in a country community, on a 
quiet farm, working with his father and two older .brothers 



14 casket's book. 

through the day, and hunting coons and opossums by night, 
excepting the winter months, when the nights, till nine 
o'clock, were spent in clearing ground and burning brush. 
His school-boy days were few and far between. He was 
an apt pupil, learning rapidly. A leading element in his 
nature was that of humor, an inordinate love of fun. Many 
were the threshings he received from the pedagogue for 
pranks played on him and his fellow-students. That and 
his fondness for playing with the little girls, caused him all 
the trouble he ever had at school. When eight years old he 
went to school for six months — about three months at odd 
times between the age of eight and fifteen ; and also six 
months after the age of fifteen. The school was three miles 
from his father's, which distance he walked morning and 
evening. He cultivated one acre of cotton to pay his tuition. 
This closes his educational career so far as teachers were 
concerned. At the age of sixteen he desired to learn the 
blacksmith trade, and was apprenticed to John W. Miller, 
who treated him kindly and gave him plenty of hard work 
over the anvil from daylight till nine o'clock at night. When 
apprentices worked after nine o'clock they were entitled by 
law to one dime per hour. He made many dimes to spend 
for confectionery, working often till eleven and twelve, then 
gratifying his love of fun for an hour or two by changing 
signs, etc. Having served three years, part of the time with 
Miller, who had the misfortune to loose one of his eyes and 
had to quit his trade, he then finished the trade with his 
brother-in-law, J. B. Childress. That business being over- 
done, he determined to abandon his native State and try his 
fortune in the " Sunny South." 

He tied up his wardrobe in a little bundle, bade good-by 
to family and friends and took his way on foot to Mississippi. 
He stopped at what is now called Holly Springs, in August, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 15 

1835. He purchased a shop and tools within three miles of 
Tallahoma. Having to wait one month for possession, he 
concluded to try his hand at driving oxen, for which he 
received twelve dollars per month. When he reached that 
destination he had fifty cents in his pocket. Carrying on 
his trade after getting possession of his shop, for three 
months, he then sold out, bought a horse, saddle and bridle 
and wended his way westward, following the star of empire, 
reaching Fort Gibson, Claiborne County, Mississippi, and 
being reduced to fifty cents again, he was compelled to look 
out for employment ; sought and obtained what was called 
an overseer's berth. Not being pleased with the treatiflent 
of the negroes, at the end of two years he became disgusted 
with the calling, and abandoned it while getting a thousand 
dollars per annum. He then returned to his former occu- 
pation. 

In December, 1837, he was married to Lucy Jones, an 
orphan of whose ancestry but little is known. She was an 
educated and accomplished lady ; she instilled into his mind 
a desire to improve his mental and moral condition. Shortly 
after this Mr. Caskey united with the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, of which his wife was a member. Manifesting 
some speaking ability, his friends desired him to become a 
preacher in that church. 

This, added to the influence of his wife, caused him to 
apply himself to study. Keeping up the old custom of 
working from daylight till nine o'clock at night, from Octo- 
ber till April; from nine to eleven o'clock he devoted to 
study by the light of a pine-knot fire. He thoroughly 
digested the next day what he read by night ; he studied 
English grammar, logic, rhetoric, natural, mental and moral 
philosophy, ancient and modern history ; these constituted 
his first general reading. 



16 casket's book. 

In 1840, while studying for the Methodist ministry, he 
became dissatisfied with their doctrine and discipline, 
examined the Scripture for himself, and at last joined 
the Christian Church. Here commenced his ministerial 
life — working in his shop through the week and preaching 
on Sunday. 

He had two sons, William A., born October 26, 1838, 
and Hugh Thomas, born March 8, 1841. The latter was 
killed by a fall from a horse in 1844. The older son, 
William, was educated at Newton College, Wilkinson County, 
Mississippi, and at Bethany College, Virginia: and was a 
young man of great promise ; studied medicine, and while 
attending lectures in New Orleans contracted typhus fever 
from a dissecting-room; returned to his father's home at 
Jackson, Mississippi, and closed his eyes in death March 
4, 1859, in hope of a glorious resurrection. 

On the 29th of October, 1843, his beloved wife was laid 
to rest in her grave. After this bereavement he abandoned 
his trade and devoted himself to evangelizing, principally in 
Mississippi and Alabama. The churches were few and far 
between, but they remunerated him sufficiently to keep soul 
and body together, and great success attended his labors. 

On the 14th of April, 1845, he was married to Mrs. 
Harriet E. Ferguson, near Gainesville, Sumter County, 
Alabama. She was the daughter of Elijah and Mary Fore- 
man, and had two children by her first husband : William 
E. and Madison Z. W. E. Ferguson is now merchandising 
at Bayou Goula, Louisiana, M. Z. is a planter on the Mis- 
sissippi, residing in Jackson, Mississippi. Mr. Caskey's 
present wife has borne him six children, four sons and two 
daughters, to-wit; B. Wells, born February 8, 1847, in 
Alabama; Julia M., born May 17, 1850, at Palo Alto, 
Mississippi ; M. Pickett, born June 7, 1852, at Palo Alto, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 17 

Mississippi; Charlie C, born October 29, 1854, at Jackson, 
Mississippi; Temple Withers, born August 13, 1856, and 
Lillie L., born October 20, 1858. The first and last died in 
infancy. Julia was educated at Franklin College, under 
President T. Fanning, near Nashville. She graduated with 
the first honors, read an original essay on " The Mission of 
the Women of the South," which production evinced great 
originality and vigor of thought, was severely criticised by 
the press of the North, and was highly eulogized by the 
Southern press. It was delivered soon after the war and 
touched on issues now dead and buried. She is an accom- 
plished and talented lady, happily married to Mr. E. H. 
Crenshaw, a resident of Sherman, Texas. On September 
11, 1880, was born to them a son, whom they called Caskey, 
in honor of his grandfather, and for the name which had 
always been borne by men of integrity and honor. His 
three sons are all over six feet high, with well formed bodies, 
sound minds and good morals. They have so far followed 
their father's advice, who has tried public life in nearly all 
its phases, and, although successful in all, he advised his 
sons to choose private life and the occupation of farming. 
M. Picket is farming with his half brother in Mississippi ; 
Charles C, near Whitesboro, Texas; Temple Withers, near 
Fort Worth, living with his parents. 

From the time of marriage of Elder Caskey in 1845, he 
continuedto preach in Alabama and Mississippi, living in the 
former State, till 1849. He built up large churches at Gains- 
ville, Clinton, and Mount Hebron, Alabama. 

In 1849 he moved to Chickasaw County, Mississippi, and 
settled near Palo Alto, where there was a church of twenty- 
six members. When he left in 1854, the membership had 
been increased to upward of three hundred. It was one of 
the wealthiest and most intelligent communities in the State. 

2 



18 caskey's book. 

He labored in that section of country for five years, built up 
churches, aided by other preachers at Houston, Prairie 
Mount, Crawfordsville, Cotton Gin Fort, and other smaller 
congregations. These were the most successful years of his 
ministry. His powers of declamation were far superior then 
to what they now are. His exhortations were warm and 
pathetic. 

Brought forward by the churches to sustain and defend 
the cause which he plead, he was forced into theological 
discussions. He cultivated his logical powers at the expense 
of his rhetorical powers. In this way he became a cool, 
close, terse logician, instead of a warm impassioned 
declaimer. He has conducted fifty-six debates, four to 
to seven days and nights in length, and has debated with 
the best minds of the different denominations. Only a few 
need to be mentioned, as it would be tedious to the reader 
to run over the whole list with its details : the apostles 
Tyler and Thomas .of the Mormon Church, Sandsing of the 
Baptist, at Palo Alto, Mississippi ; J. L. Chapman, of the 
Methodist; twice with William Harrison, author of The- 
opJiilus Walton^ at Crawfordsville ; D. E. Burns, a Baptist, 
at Utica, Mississippi ; A. B. Fly, a Methodist, at Paducah, 
Kentucky ; D. B. Ray, editor of the Baptist Battle Flag; 
John Burns, Universalist, editor of the Religious Herald; 
three times with William Price, Methodist, at Fort Worth, 
Cleburne and Dallas, Texas ; with W. J. Brown, a Cumber- 
land Presbyterian minister of Mount Vernon, Missouri ; 
twice with Elder Sledge, a Baptist, at Woodbury and 
Alvarado, Texas. 

These debates were nearly all arranged by the churches and 
their preachers, and Elder Caskey was selected as one of the 
champions. After leaving Palo Alto in 1854, he had charge 
of the following churches : Jackson, Mississippi, six years ; 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 19 

Memphis, Tennessee, two years — salary twenty-five hundred 
dollars; Paducah, Kentucky, two years — salary twenty- 
five hundred dollars. He traveled two years as State evan- 
gelist. In 1875, he moved to Texas, and had charge of the 
Sherman Church three years. From 1866 to 1875 his plant- 
ing interests were superintended by his stepson, W. E. Fer- 
guson, who was in partnership with him. His family 
resided on the farm, with the exception of one year. 

The disorganized condition of labor, the fluctuations in the 
cotton market, visitations from the cotton worm, the payment 
of money wages to the laborers — their employes, eat up the 
plantation, all that was made on it, and about ten thousand 
dollars thrown in. His plantation was about ten miles from 
Jackson. Thus was he left about as poor as when first he 
started in life. 

In 1870 by a resolution of the State Board of his church 
(in Mississippi), he was requested to go North and East to get 
aid in providing the preachers and the educators for the bene- 
fit of the freedman of the South, she being prostrated in her 
resources. He lectured in New York, Philadelphia, Wor- 
cester, Massachusetts, Syracuse and other minor points pre- 
senting the condition and claims of the freedmen. The 
lectures were highly spoken of by the press. 

After the election of Mr. Lincoln in 1860, the Bell and 
Breckenridge parties selected a committee of fifteen non- 
politicians to consider what should be done. Mr. Caskey 
was chosen on that committee. After a free and full inter- 
change of views, the committee appointed Judge Wiley P. 
Harris and Mr. Caskey to embody their views in the form 
of resolutions, to be submitted to a mass meeting to be 
called on the next night in the State House. The resolutions 
were read in the mass meeting, discussed and unanimously 
adopted by both parties. The resistance movement was in- 



20 casket's book. 

augurated. Parties then divided on secession by separate 
State action, or secession by co-operation of States. He 
took the rostrum in lavor of the former and met many of 
the ablest speakers on the opposite side in debate. The 
State was carried in favor of secession by separate State 
action, by an unanimous vote in convention save one. 

War was declared, Mr. Caskey was appointed chaplain of 
the 18th Mississippi Regiment of Volunteers in June, 1861, 
was in the first battle of Manassas, and against the wishes 
of officers and men shouldered a Colt's rifle — a double- 
cylinder sixteen-shooter — and went into the fight. During 
the battle a fragment of a brigade became demoralized, broke 
ranks and fled. Mounting a horse, the elder overtook them, 
headed them in a narrow pass, rallied them at the muzzle of 
a revolver, made an appeal to their patriotism, and carried 
them back into line. He faithfully discharged his duty 
to the sick and the wounded, attended to his prayer-meeting 
and preaching, but the trouble was to keep him out of the 
fights. He was called by the army, ' ' The Fighting Parson. ' ' 
He remained in the army of the Potomac until December, 
when he was sent home on furlough connected with govern- 
ment business. 

The Legislature of the State being in session, and having 
before them a hospital bill, he was invited by both houses to 
address them on the subject, which he did. The bill was 
passed ; an appropriation of a hundred thousand dollars was 
made to enable the State to aid in taking care of the sick 
and wounded by organizing State liospitals. The Governor 
appointed him hospital agent of the Army of the West. 
The State University buildings were turned over to him for 
a hospital, in which he organized and conducted one of the 
best hospitals in either government. The capacity was suffi- 
cient to accommodate a thousand ; the furniture, bedding 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 21 

and much of the provision and clothing were supplied by 
donation from Memphis, New Orleans and other points; 
also from the ladies* aid societies. There were fourteen 
picked surgeons, selected by Dr. Isom, post surgeon, and 
himself. Volunteer ward-masters, stewardSj nurses, cooks 
and washers, of such as could not bear arms, with nearly 
one hundred negroes, which cost nothing, performed the 
work. 

Under his management the whole machinery ran like 
clock-work. It was more like a well-kept hotel than a hos- 
pital. Having expended about twenty thousand dollars of 
the money of the State ; with the prospect of having soon to fall 
back, some conflict having arisen between Confederate and 
State authority, he had his assets inventoried by a commis- 
sion appointed by the two and sold out to the Confederacy 
for twenty-three thousand dollars. 

The State militia being called to arms, his duties were 
transferred by the Governor to the State troops. His duties 
were to appoint surgeons, to supply medicines, houses or 
hospital tents and supplies generally. In this service, he 
used some twenty-five thousand dollars. He regards this as 
the most useful year of his life. 

The militia being disbanded, he again took the field as 
chaplain of General Wirt Adair's cavalry brigade. In 
January preceding the close of the war, his negroes having 
all left except two women and six children (four being 
orphans), he closed out his farming operations, moved his 
family to Meridian, that his wife might be with her youngest 
son, then acting as express agent at that place. His health 
failing he was transferred from field to post duty, where he 
was left when the bottom dropped out of the Confederate 
tub — with a wife and four children, two negro women and 



22 casket's book. 

six negro children, fifteen dollars in gold and a cow, with an 
abundance of Confederate money — all his earthly posses- 
sions having walked off, or been converted into Confederate 
money — his house and lot in Jackson, worth four thousand 
dollars, horses, mules, cattle and hogs, and the last crop 
raised on his plantation all, all in Confederate bonds. So 
ends his war record. 

He has been connected with Masonry, Odd Fellowship and 
the various temperance organizations ; with the first and last 
since 1840, not aflfiliating with the Odd Fellows for the last 
twenty years. He took the degrees in Masonry from Entered 
Apprentice to Knight Templar, presided as Most Excellent 
High Priest of Jackson Eoyal Arch Chapter No. 6 for eight 
years, and as Eminent Commander of Mississippi Com- 
manderyNo. 1 six years. Neither of these, however, was 
opened during the war. He filled the office of Grand Chap- 
lain of the Grand Lodge and Chapter of the State several 
times ; was Deputy Eminent Grand Commander of the Grand 
Commandery of the State of Mississippi. Since the war he 
has had but little affiliation with Masonry ; has been a 
lecturer on temperance since 1840 down to the present time. 

The wife of Mr. Caskey has been truly a helpmate for 
him, bearing patiently the burdens of a preacher's wife. 
The rearing of his children was mainly left to her, he being 
absent most of his time from home. Well and nobly did 
she perform her task. She was born in Chester district. 
South Carolina, June 7, 1814. The leading element in her 
nature is self-sacrifice for the good of husband, children and 
friends, and for the cause of which her husband had spent 
his life. He has been often heard to say in public that for 
all the good he may have done, for all he is or hopes to be 
in this world, or the world to come, he is indebted to those 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 23 

two pure-hearted and noble-minded women, one of whom 
sleeps in her grave ; the other, still walking the journey of 
life by his side, cheering him onward in the path of duty. 

Mr. Caskey now fills the pulpit of the Christian Church 
at Fort Worth, Texas. The building is of native rock, 
eighty feet long by forty wide and forty feet high. The 
auditorium has an arched ceiling twenty- three feet high. The 
basement is the same in length and width as the auditorium ; 
membership, two hundred and fifty. 

Mr. Caskey' s towering form accords well with the build- 
ing. He is six feet three inches m height, slightly bowed 
with age. His features are long and pointed, with a low 
massive forehead. His blue eyes are animated and pene- 
trating. His face when in repose, bears the calm expression 
as though the light of eternity had already settled there. 
His enunciation is clear, and his voice is easily heard by the 
most distant of his audience. His style in the pulpit is 
animated, his gestures always appropriate and sometimes 
dramatic ; he walks to and fro in the pulpit while speaking. 
As a pulpit orator, logician, deep-thinker, skillful debater, 
Mr. Caskey stands confessedly at the head among his fellow- 
preachers in the South. Without exordium he plunges at 
once into his subject, battling against dogmas with a force 
of argument that, like the mountain torrent, carries every 
thing before it, demolishing "theologies" in a manner, 
though often caustic, yet not exciting the anger or resistance 
of their advocates. A great metaphysician, always speaking 
with the deliberation and confidence of one conscious of 
reserved power, often seeming to play with his subject. He 
is also the gentle shepherd, leading the young of his flock 
into the green pastures and beside the still waters of eternal 
life. Though loving his people, he has a fixed aversion to 
the humdrum custom of pastoral visiting to the healthy and 



24 casket's book. 

wealthy. He regards it as demoralizing and useless, while 
he may often be seen wending his way, with a well filled 
basket on his arm, to the homes of the sick and poor. He 
is a man of the old-fashioned type of honesty. Twice he 
surrendered all he had without reserve to the liquidation of 
debts. 

In 1878, his salary being too small, he began the practice 
of law, was eminently successful as a criminal lawyer, but 
on the increase of his salary, immediately resumed his minis- 
terial labors. Mr. Caskey is a Christian and gentleman, and 
enjoys the confidence of all who know him." 




CHAPTER IL 

INFIDELITY — WHAT IS IT ? 

^HE Bible, is it true or false — divine or human? 
God-made, or man-made? Does it contain the 
thoughts of the infinite mind, or the cunning of 
^p"^ priestcraft? These are questions over which the 
Christian and the infidel minds of the world have struggled 
in all ages of human history ; and over which they will con- 
tinue to struggle till Jesus comes. 

That the Bible is a wonderful book is undenied and unde- 
niable. A book of facts and fables ; of prophecies and 
promises ; of poetry and politics ; of law and gospel ; in 
promise, in prophecy, in type and shadow. It talks of God, 
of man, of angels, and demons ; of a life given and lost ; of 
a life beginning and ending ; and a life that shall nevermore 
end. It lays its fingers on the first bounding pulse of new- 
born time and rocks the baby world in its cradle ; it feels the 
last feeble pulse of dying time and lays its hand upon its 
pale and furrowed brow. It follows man from the garden to 
the grave ; from the grave to glory ! But time would fail to 
tell all the wonderful things contained therein. I intend in 
this lecture to examine two of the strongest arguments 
offered against t'lie divine authority of the Scriptures, by the 
leaders of the infidel world. 

First : They urge that the hook cannot he understood^ and 
therefore is not God-made. Since it claims to contain direc- 
tions how to live and die, and how to get home to Heaven at 
last, all minds ought to be able to comprehend its contents. 

(25) 



26 casket's book. 

The premises are admitted, so far as regards man's inabil- 
ity to understand the book. But, the conclusion is denied. 
Had the infidel world possessed the great brain power it has 
ever boasted, it might have found reasons high as Heaven 
and deep as hell why THE BOOK could not ever be com- 
pletely comprehended by any mind. Had they thought of 
the fact that the book was intended to engage the best 
thought powers of the most giant-minded of earth-born 
sons, not only for a limited time, but all along the pathway 
of life ; that it was for all ages, peoples, kindreds, tribes 
and tongues ; to be read, studied and thought on by the last 
of Adam's dying race; that there must of necessity be 
heights of thought over which an angel wing has never 
passed, and depths too profound to be fathomed by any 
plumb-line woven in the loom of time. Suppose some mas- 
ter mind grasp it all at the age of forty years ; could under- 
stand it all ; or, as infidelity would have it, climb its highest 
heights, and reach its profoundest depths, by the time he 
came to the age of accountability. And, it is said, because 
this cannot be done, then the book is not divine. Then, what 
must he do with his mental machinery the remaining days 
and years of a long life? He hands over his perfect 
knowledge to the remainder of the world's thinkers, and 
they have naught of which to think, nothing to learn — men- 
tal stagnation. In plain English, this infidel objection would 
have the great God turn the world of mind over to listless 
play and out to grass ! This is about as good as could be 
expected from the imagined God of such minds as conjured 
up such an argument against the Bible. This pet argument 
of theirs is a sharp two-edged sword ; and it is about time 
they were learning that in handling it they have cut off their 
own fingers. 

They are blind, and, Sampson-like, have pulled down their 



INFIDELITY WHAT IS IT? 27 

own temple upon themselves. No man, they say, can under- 
stand this book. Admitted ! All books made by man can 
be understood by men ; because, man-made, they can surely 
be understood, as well by the reader as by the author. But 
here is a book that has never been f ally comprehended ; 
therefore it is not man-made. If this does not bring the 
blush of shame to the cheek of those who rely upon such an 
argument, then they have more cheek than I ever thought 
they had, and I have always given them a tolerably wide 
margin. Thus dispose we of argument number one. 

Their second argument is drawn from the discrepancies in 
detail ; particularly in regard to the resurrection of Christ — 
contradictions, as they call them. If they had looked closely 
into the design of these apparent contradictions, they might 
have saved themselves the shame of ever making the thing, 
and of calling it an argument. 

Those apparent contradictions were put in the book for a 
two-fold purpose. 

First : To enable man to do as he please ; to be a Christian, 
or an infidel ; to preserve intact the free agency of man, and 
leave him the power of choice ; to consult his heart as well 
as his head; to preserve the value of faith. God could 
have made the evidence concerning His Son coercive ; so 
conclusive that all doubt would be instantly driven from all 
minds. That moment the value of faith would be no more ! 
Man's freedom destroyed, God disowned, and the world for- 
ever lost! For how could man be saved from sin, and in 
Heaven saved, by what he could not help believing, or 
doing? How could an involuntary faith honor God, or bless 
man? If the book be true, the hour is coming when all 
doubts will vanish like mist before the morning sun ; when 
the eyes of an awakened world shall look upon the Son of 
God as He is. For every eye shall see him ; every ear shall 



28 casket's book. 

hear his voice ; every knee shall bend before him, and every 
tongue confess that Christ is Lord to the glory of God the 
Father ! But who so insane, even among infidels, as to 
think that any hearts will be purified on that great and nota- 
ble day of the Lord? By knowledge thrust upon them, and 
knowledge, too, which they would give worlds not to know? 
Another reason, perhaps, was to prevent the corrupt heart 
and perverted mind of the infidel world from constructing 
an argument that would have more brains in it than has ever 
fallen to the lot of the whole family, from Tom Paine up or 
down. If there were perfect agreement among them in all 
minutice, in every detail, it would not require a lawyer of 
second-rate legal talent to blight the character of all the wit- 
nesses, and to throw the case out of court, and from before 
the jury, — unless — he were blessed with an infidel jury. 
Such jury, of course, would do as they always have done, 
or tried to do — subvert all law, and overturn all rules of 
evidence. Suppose proof stronger than holy writ, perfect 
agreement, word for word and letter for letter, even to the 
dotting of an I or the crossing of a T ; proof beyond even 
infidel doubt that there was no collusion, no previous agree- 
ment among the witnesses. Why, a dozen, or a hundred of 
the best men in the world dare not risk their reputation for 
truth and veracity, by deposing before any court in the way 
that infidels would have these witnesses testify for Christ. 
These discrepancies prove that the witnesses were honest : 
The infidel plan would prove fraud. 

Having destroyed the two main pillars upholding the 
scaffold on which the attacking enemy stands ; having spiked 
their second gun and turned their first against themselves, 
and having thrown a hot bomb-shell into their camp, I now 
proceed to offer two arguments in favor of the Christian 
hypothesis — that the Bible is of God. I will deal fairly as 



INFIDELITY — WHAT IS IT? 29 

regards the number ; and if infidels will dispose of my argu- 
ments, as I have of theirs, I promise to renounce the Bible 
and turn infidel (if I can), and if not, then the next thing to 
it, and that is — nothing ! _ 

My first argument is, that the Bible is the only book in the 
world that can be read with pleasure and profit, from boy- 
hood's bright and sunny hours all through life, even on 
through winter's dark and dreary years. The more it is 
read the stronger grows the desire to read it. Like the accu- 
mulation of wealth, the more a man gets the more he wants. 
The grandest minds that ever thought have studied its glory- 
gilded pages, and after fancying that they fully understood 
some particular text have been greatly surprised to find, 
perhaps on the hundredth reading, some new truth never 
recognized by them before. There crops out some beautiful 
sunbeam flashing with glory, and the wonder is that it had 
never been seen before. 

All books made by men pall upon the taste, and will not 
bear an oft repeated reading. This book, and this alone, will 
bear reading on and on, ever and forever ! Till the reader's 
spirit sinks to rest, there are still new lessons for study ; and 
we die realizing that we have not learned it all. If the father 
could hand over to his son all that he has learned, and the 
son begin where the father left off, and he to his son trans- 
mit all that both had learned, and they on from sire to son 
down the line of generations and ages — the last Bible 
student, after gathering in to himself all that they had 
learned, would find some thoughts that none of them had 
ever discovered. The Bible has been in the hands of the 
people for ages, and yet I venture to say that more religious 
light has poured forth on church and world in the last half 
century than did for the thousand years preceding. Fortu- 
nately our salvation from sin here, and our salvation in 



30 casket's book. 

heaven, the home of God and the dweUing-place of angels 
does not depend, as the infidel urges, upon our understand- 
ing the whole book ; for then none could be saved. There are a 
few plain, surface truths, easily understood by the humblest, 
responsible mind, which contain the power of God to save 
men ; truths to enlighten the mind, purify the heart and guide 
the footsteps to glory and to God at last. Those heights and 
depths of which we speak as being unmeasured and unmea- 
surable do not bound and measure the power necessary to 
save ; but they contain God's power to hold human mind to 
himself. No mind gets beyond his control, and reaches a 
point where it can truthfully say I have learned all of God 
that is to be learned from his Word. As well might the sci- 
entist, who makes the works of God in nature his study, 
say I have found it all ; have discovered the last secret that 
the great creative God has hidden deep down in the bosom 
of earth, or up among the shining stars. 

My second argument is drawn from the biographical 
sketches of persons occupying conspicuous places on its 
pages. I fearlessly affirm that they are the only true biogra- 
phies to be found in all or any of the books of this or any 
other age; that they and they alone contain the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. All biographies are 
written by men that love or hate ; and a man writing under 
the influence of either of these motives, uncontrolled by a 
power over and above himself, can no more write the un- 
varnished truth about the person loved or hated than he can 
raise the dead. That could be done only by the removal of 
the law of death ; the other by the reversal or suspension of 
the immutable, eternal laws of love and hatred. 

We select but two characters, one from the Old Testa- 
ment and the other from the New. From the Old, a 
prophet, king David, the shepherd's son, who at the time 



INFIDELITY — WHAT IS IT ? 31 

he kept his father's flocks, was a man after God's own 
heart. The sweet singer of Israel, of whom it may be said 
as Byron's eulogist said of the great poet, "ZTe tuned his 
harp, and nations heard entranced." This biographer, his 
devoted friend and loyal subject, paints him as large as 
life, and as black with crime as the foulest fiend of night, 
and hangs him out on the canvas of time to be looked 
at, to be pitied, blamed, contemned and hated. He paints 
in colors, that glow and never fade, the dark and bloody 
tragedy which stained the name of king and friend, and 
fixed on him a foul deed unsurpassed in the annals of 
crime. He did not offer the poor palliation or extenuation 
that might, and doubtless would have been offered, had 
not a power controlled his words or pen, mightier than his 
own volition. He would have told us that David was 
educated under the universal doctrine of the divine right of 
kings ; that he had a right to all persons, lives, liberty and 
property within his realm. God did not permit him to do 
even this much. He had to record it all just as it was ; and 
now I or some other defender of the Bible against the 
wicked assaults of an infidel age, can hurl this biographical 
sketch against their Gibraltar. Since others seem to have 
failed, I now send it, with all its crushing force, into their 
citadel. And I say to infidels, they must duplicate this, or 
admit that it is not human — and is divine. If it can be 
duplicated, I give up the Bible ; if not, it must be accepted 
as divine ; or the infidel should acknowledge his idiocy and 
seek a dwelling place in an asylum. 

I select from the New Testament the great Apostle Peter, 
to whom was committed the keys of the kingdom — '■^ First 
Pope of Home " (provided Eome does not tell a great fib). 
His biography was penned by Luke, a brother preacher, 
and, of course, possessed of a warm fellow feeling. A 



32 casket's book. 

common cause, and common trials and sufferings, would 
all prompt Luke to put the most favorable construction on 
all that Peter said and did. But instead of this, Luke 
clothes him with cowardice as with a mantle, with falsehood 
as with a garment, and with profanity that would make any 
man that is not a proficient in the art of cursing, ashamed 
of his bungling work. I have never heard or read of but 
one class of characters who I thought had graduated with 
the first honors of that college, and they are the Popes of 
Rome! And as poor Peter made his debut in that line 
when he denied his Lord, they, of course, have among their 
unwritten tradition the language used by their first Pope ! 
This may account for their excelling all others in this par- 
ticular line. 

You will please pardon this digression, and return with 
me to the facts in the case. Luke photographs Peter just 
as he stood ; offers no excuse, no palliation whatever. Did 
he do this of his own free will and accord? The man who 
thinks he did is not to be reasoned with. 

In contrast with these sacred biographies, we select two 
that are purely human. The subject. Napoleon Bonaparte ; 
the biographers, Abbott and Sir Walter Scott. One writing 
under the influence of intense love, the other under the in- 
fluence of hatred relentless as death. Both writers were 
great and good men, and did not mean to wrong the mighty 
dead, about whom they wrote. But, they were men, and 
wrote as men ever write. They had no divine power encom- 
passing them and controlling their volition ; no power to 
prevent the laws of love and hate from governing thoughts, 
feelings and words. 

As to the intellectual man and his military genius, even 
hatred could not question or conceal it ; as to the main facts 
in his history, neither love nor hatred could change them. 



' INFIDELITY WHAT IS IT? 33 

Hence some points of agreement between the writers. That 
he shook a continent with his martial tread ; that the rapid- 
ity of his movements and concentration of his forces as- 
tounded the battle-scarred heroes of his age ; that he deluged 
France and other countries with blood, enriched their soil 
with human gore, and whitened their hills and vales with 
bleaching bones of bravest men ; baptized the continent in 
the tears of widows and orphans ; ascended a throne built 
upon pyramids of the dead ! These are facts that yield not 
either to love or hate. Both are compelled to accept them. 
But when the Argus eyes of love scan these fields of carnage, 
blood, and death ; and give to us and ages yet to come the 
reasons, the motives prompting the actions of this great 
destroyer of human lives, the most horrid butcheries and 
foulest crimes are excused and sanctified by assigning motives 
that would honor an angel and glorify humanity. Love 
hides from view all that hate would uncover. Ask him if 
his hero, his demi-god, ever thought of self, toiled for self, 
fought for self, slew for self, caused woman's tears to stream 
for self? And love indignantly answers. No!! Was Na- 
poleon ambitious? Why, the fires of personal ambition 
never even smouldered in his great kingly heart ! He had 
an ambition, it is true, but it was sanctified ; an ambition for 
the progress and success of great, grand and glorious princi- 
ples, that were to revolutionize the world, and, politically, 
regenerate the universe ! A man of the grandest concep- 
tions, of the loftiest thoughts, of the purest motives, of the 
most unselfish nature ! This is the photograph of the man, 
as painted by the hand of admiration, friendship and love. 
It is a bright and noble picture, without one ugly spot. 
Pity it is but a caricature, as are all paintings of human 
lives, done by human hands, to a greater or less degree — 
according to the temperament of the writer, the intensity of 
3 



34 casket's book. 

his love, or his hatred. If I could measure them in a given 
case, I could tell to a certainty just how far the biographer 
would wander from the path of naked truth, and just what 
allowance to make for his divergences, which he can no more 
avoid than he can create a world Who so silly as to believe 
the utterances of the fond mother, when with lovelit eyes 
she o'er the cradle bends, and in rapture looks upon her first 
born? To her it is "a thing of beauty and a joy (maybe) 
forever." No such babe was ever born before ! To others, 
perhaps, a badly gotten up specimen of infantile humanity. 
Let us now turn to the other and darker side of the pict- 
ure of this world-renowned hero, and see what sad havoc 
hatred can and must make of its beauty and glory. Sir 
Walter Scott was great — greater than Abbot, equally hon- 
est, and tried as hard to see the man as he was. Scott was 
an Englishman, and Napoleon his national foe ; he hated as 
only great minds and hearts can hate. He waved his wand 
of hate o'er the beautiful picture painted by extravagant 
love, and all its beauty fled. Now haggard deformity looks 
out from the canvas, a hideous monster without one redeem- 
ing trait. The baleful fires of an unholy, personal ambition 
cast their lurid glare all over his life. At but one shrine he 
ever bowed the knee, at but one altar he worshiped, and that 
was — self ! Before this everything else was swept away — 
religion, friendship, sympathy, and love. Nothing was 
music to his ears unless the sounds advanced his rapid 
strides towards the conquest of Europe, the goal of his un- 
hallowed ambition. Light was painful to his eyes, unless 
its rays shone upon thrones to be filled by him. Nothing 
sweet to his taste unless it smacked of blood — blood shed 
to bring him to places higher, and to power greater. No 
holy emotion ever stirred his corrupt, ambitious heart. No 
unselfish thought could live a single moment in his worse 



INFIDELITY WHAT IS IT? 35 

than demon mind. Hatred dwarfed his mountain virtues 
into mole-hills, and lifted his mole-hill vices into mountain 
peaks. This is the dark side of the picture ; love paints an 
angel — hatred, a demon. 

Poor frail man ! This is the be^t that he can do, unless 
he can learn to look without love or hate ; unless he can an- 
nihilate those eternal laws, or never undertake the task. 
What, then may be asked, are we to do for biographies of 
our departed loved ones? — have none? No, no! Have 
them, by all means ; but do not fool yourselves by believing 
that you have ever gotten a true picture. We have now 
looked at the bright and the dark side of the picture, as 
painted by Hatred and Love, and must pronounce them 
human and false. We have gazed upon the two painted by 
the hand of G-od, giving both sides — the beauty and the 
deformity, the good and the evil ; and must pronounce the 
work divine ! I cannot close this humble effort of mine in 
defense of the Book of God without a passing notice of one 
of the last, most bitter, most unfair, relentless, foul and un- 
truthful of all the foes the Bible ever had, at least as far as 
I have ever read. And I would here mercifully suggest to 
Ingersoll that when he butted his crazy head against Moses, 
he came much nearer having nothing left but a brainless 
skull than he did hurting Moses ! Moses felt him no more 
than the ox of the fable felt the gnat on his horn ; and I in- 
cline to think that Ingersoll felt about as felt the gnat, when 
he wanted to create the impression that he had much to do 
in kicking up the dust, perched on the horn of the ox. 
"What a dust," said the gnat, "we create! Great big I 
and the ox ! " " What a dust," exclaims Ingersoll, " I and 
Moses have kicked up ! " I will inform the buzzing, mighty 
insect, this doughty champion of infidelity, for his future 
good, that I have been laboring, perhaps, more years than 



36 casket's book. 

Ingersoll has lived, to take the crown from Moses' brow to 
place it on the brow of Christ — and have failed ! Not be- 
cause Moses was not willing to abandon throne and crown 
to his rightful Sovereign. He thought that his resignation 
of legislative authority was handed in and took effect upon 
the Mount of Transfiguration, when the Lord his God did 
what Moses said he would do — raise up from among their 
brethren a prophet like unto him, whom they should hear in 
all things ; and whosoever among them would not hear that 
prophet should be cut off from his people. But the pulpit, 
the bench, the bar, the statesmen of Congress and the legis- 
lative assemblies of States, the church, the world, will not 
let Moses go ! They all hold on to him both in their religion 
and their laws — hold on despite Moses and Christ both. ■ 
The people of Christ will not let Moses vacate in favor of 
their and his Lord. Some Mr. Hop-over-my- thumbs, in a 
thing called a branch of the church, want the church and 
the world to think that they are something extra, that they 
are specially called and sent to preach, and away they go to 
Moses and quote : ' ' No man taketh this honor to himself 
unless he is called of God, as was Aaron " Another wants 
a gaping crowd to think that he is great and good, and 
knowing they would not very soon find it out from head or 
heart or life, wraps his body in a flowing gown, in broad day, 
as a woman does at night ; knowing the silly crowd will 
respect the robe, if not what is inside of it ; for is not the 
robe forever sanctified, because commanded by Moses and 
by Aaron worn? They want a baby membership, and know- 
ing that the Great Law-Giver says nothing in Plis statute 
book on the subject, away they go to Moses, via Abraham, 
to the church there in Abraham's house. Because they find 
the precious babe there, and infer it was put there by circum- 
cision ; and then run on down to Sinai and Moses, and infer 



INFIDELITY — WHAT IS IT? 37 

identity; then from Sinai to Calvary, and infer that the 
Jewish and Christian church are one and the same ; and then 
close up the chapter of inferences by bringing baptism in 
the room of circumcision. Well, the fact is, the two are so 
much alike, in all particulars that go to establish the identity 
of two things, that we are disposed to pardon the poor 
preachers for the mistake they make. They resemble each 
other as to time ; at eight days old ; whenever you please, 
and if you don't please, at all ! Note persons or agents by 
whom done, father, brother, mother, friend — but preachers 
alone can baptize ! I presume this grows out of the fact 
that it is a non-essential, and that no others will dirty their 
hands with it. On whom performed, — males only ; but now 
males and females. It might be a question of some interest 
to find out how the second can come in room of the first, 
when the first took in only half, and the worst half at that ! 
I confess, had they inferred the women in, and the men out, I 
would have felt more admiration for their taste in church 
making. Again, they want sprinkling of water, and as none 
is found in the law of Christ, to Moses they must go. The 
Catholics and Episcopalians want priests, and as the New 
Testament is silent as the grave about an order of priest- 
hood, away to Moses they go. They want to bring a sinner 
to Christ, and he must tramp around by Sinai ; for 
they pervert the declaration of Paul when he says : ' ' The 
law was our schoolmaster, to bring us (Jews) to Christ! " 
They want a law to protect the Lord's day from desecration, 
as they imagine ; but since Jesus forgot to say what ought 
and what ought not to be done on His day — that is, so far 
as the world are concerned — they must come to His aid, and 
away they go to Moses and Sinai, dethroning Jesus as law- 
giver even over His own day and His own household, and 
enthroning Moses. " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
holy." Why? 




CHAP TEE III. 

"WHO DO MEN SAY THAT I THE SON OF MAN AM?'' 

^HIS question was asked by our Lord of his disciples, 
Matt, xvi : 13, on one occasion ; on another he said to 
the Pharisees, " What think ye of Christ, whose Son 
^^p^ is he? " As I am making an effort to do what has 
never been attempted before, to sustain the doctrine of mira- 
cles and the Bible by proof from the inner instead of the 
outer circle, to sustain them from the internal instead of the 
external, — to fasten upon the infidel world the fact that they 
are believers in miracles, according to their own admissions. 
To prove that Jesus is the Christ ; that he is all he claimed 
to be, independent of all prophecies, all apostles, and from 
that about which there is no disagreement — that he is a 
miraculous personage — more than man. This being my 
purpose, of course I must be permitted to gather up proof 
wherever found. I presume it will be safe to say that for a 
man to say, or do that which no other man can say, or do, or 
comprehend after it is done, is something more than mere 
man can do. Those questions are miraculous. The world was 
four thousand years old, and they were never asked before. 
Eighteen hundred years have passed away, and they have not 
been repeated, and they never will be. Why did not the 
uniform laws of mind suggest to some other man thl§ ques- 
tion, strange, original, unique, without a predecessor, with- 
out a successor? And can you comprehend why it was ever 
asked? A man born in Bethlehem of Judea, reared up 
(38) 



*'WHO DO MEN SAY THAT I THE SON OF MAN AM?*' 39 

among his kindred, and in the midst of his own countrymen, 
rises up, at the age of thirty years, and gravely asks the 
question : ' ' Who am I ? " 

What law of mind was overturned when this thought en- 
tered his mind ? Surely not the law under the influence of 
which all other thoughts of other men had been born, else 
the question would have been as old as man, and often asked. 

And just here another miracle crops out. He was the 
only man that could the question ask — without a ready 
answer given — an answer in perfect accord with all Jewish 
prophecy, history and facts, as well as with all other his- 
tory — a satisfactory answer. The only party who ever 
essayed an answer, except when by inspiration given, 
covered themselves with shame by a glaring failure. 
' ' What think ye of Christ, whose son is he ? " They promptly 
reply "The son of David." "How then does David in 
spirit call him Lord ? ' ' Defeated, overwhelmed, they were 
silenced, and from that time forth no man dare ask him a 
question ; that is, in regard to himself. You notice how they 
differ among themselves ; both friends and foes alike. Why 
did no man ask this question before ; and why has no man 
asked it since ; and why does no man ask it now ; and why 
will no man ever ask it again ? To these questions but one 
answer can be given, and that answer plucks up infidelity by 
the roots. The secret of the answer is the questions were 
not asked by a mere man. The questions propounded by all 
others have been under the government of usual mental and 
moral laws. Men had and have no power to hold them in 
abeyance, to contravene and set them aside. I press the 
question. Why does not some infidel now rise among his 
kindred and duplicate this question, and show at least that 
he is an advanced thinker ? I will tell you the reasons why. 
These eternal laws of his nature won't let him. In iron 



40 casket's book. . 

fetters he is bound, and can't do it. He sees the smile of 
pity, or contempt, of the wise ; hears the scoff of the fools, 
and affrighted, flies from the floods of ridicule that would roll 
their billows over him, did he dare ask — Who am 1? 

Leaving these miraculous questions and the equally mirac- 
ulous fact that no one could answer them, we next notice the 
miraculous claim set up by him, and on this claim suspends 
the whole controversy. 

He said, " I am the equal of God ! ' ' This is either true 
or false ; if true, the question rests. If false, it is equally 
miraculous as if true. The world was four thousand years 
old when this falsehood was told, and was full of lies from 
the days of Cain on down the stream of time. Men in all 
ages and all countries had exhausted their mental powers in 
manufacturing all sorts of lies, that would lift themselves 
above their fellows ; that would bring them wealth, place, 
fame or power, both in civilized and savage life. Now I ask 
the infidel why no one had ever thought to tell this lie? All 
forms of imposition had been palmed off on a credulous 
world that human genius could invent ; why was this form 
never assumed before? Truly conscientious scruples will 
not be urged. Will it be said that no one had ever thought 
to put on this garb of imposition ? Then all I have to say is 
that if I were an infidel I would walk out of that household 
in profound disgust. I would deny that I belonged to a 
family four thousand years old, not one of whom had the 
wisdom to measure the power, influence, wealth, fame, ven- 
eration, adoration and love that the man could gather unto 
himself, who could get the world, or even a portion of it, to 
believe that he was the equal of the great and incomprehens- 
ible God ; deny that he belonged to a household in whose veins 
flowed no hero blood ; that they were, if not all pitiful fools 
in failing to measure its unlimited power, a set of short- 



'*WHO DO MEK SAY THAT I THE SON OF MAN AM?'' 41 

sighted, contemptible cowards in not boldly putting it on. 
Why waste their time, their lives, their breath, in telling, and 
struggling over smaller and meaner lies that could be told 
by almost any fool, and leave this one that had more sub- 
limity, majesty, might, power and glory in it than all human 
lies combined ; why leave it to this poor, obscure, friendless, 
almost unknown Galilean, whose very birthplace was a 
subject of dispute, and his calling a reproach to many — to 
rise u]3 in their midst, and shame them all by doing that 
which they had never done. He is building up for himself 
an empire that will survive when time shall die ; an empire 
whose existence shall sweep through the eternal years of 
God. 

Another question I here propound to the infidel — as you 
are bound to admit, either their silliness or their cowardice, 
for the first four thousand years what about the last eighteen 
hundred? The so-called lie was told, the claim set up; it 
became the property of the world ; it has gone upon the 
wings of the wind, and ridden the ocean's wave ; has nearly 
swept the circle of the earth, why has it not been repeated? 
Why does it yet stand out unique, inimitable? and why will 
it thus ever stand — for it will never be repeated. 

All lies told by man, can by men be repeated. Here is 
" one lie " that never has been and never will be told again, 
because it was not told by man. 

I have two propositions to make to the infidel ; you may 
select any human lie you please, from out the mass of lies 
with which the world is filled, ecclesiastic, mythological, po- 
litical, etc. ; and if I fail to duplicate it, I promise to pro- 
claim myself a poor mistaken fool. Second, if you will 
duplicate this one under discussion, then I will own myself 
hopelessly vanquished. You can find false Christs, but never 
find when one of them claimed that heaven was his native 



42 casket's book. 

dwelling place ; that he came out of the bosom of the father ; 
that he was the equal of the father. 

Is it not as clear as light that when this claim was made, 
some law eternal, that had governed minds and hearts of 
men, was overturned? that power miraculous came in over 
and above all law, by which an act was done, that can not 
now be done by any, or by all the world combined? I give 
the reason as infidelity cannot without upsetting their fabric ; 
it is not because man is not bad enough ; not because he 
fails to measure the power contained therein ; not because 
he does not appreciate what, the claim would do for him with 
all who accepted it as true ; not because he does not know 
how it is done ; for he sees, and clearly sees how it was 
done, when done, where done, — the person by whom done, 
the success which crowned the doing, and the glory that 
followed after. All men know that whosoever can clothe 
himself with Godhood grasps a power, for which kings 
and priests have always sought, but never found. 

Divest this son of Mary of the power this claim, stamped 
by infidelity as a falsehood, clothes him with; and one 
other claim, that he died for us, and he is divested of all the 
moral power he ever had over the minds and hearts of men. 

With them, he drew to himself and to his God the 
mightiest minds that ever thought, the greatest hearts that 
ever loved. 

We press the question, why has no ambitious son of earth 
put on this garb of imposition? The answer is, he cannot ! 
According to scoffing infidelity there is one, and only one 
lie that cannot be told again ; one and only one form of im- 
position that cannot be, has not been, and is not now 
practiced by men. This is because, when God created man, 
he deeply interwove into his nature the inability, placed it 
forever beyond finite power. However low a man may fall, 



"who do men sat that I THE SON OP MAN AM?" 43 

however base he becomes, when he thinks of setting up this 
august claim, every feeling of his nature, every emotion of 
his soul revolts, shrinks affrighted back, and the effort dies. 

This person, Jesus, did it, and he is more than man. 

When we contrast the lies that man can tell with this, and 
measure the heights — loftiest heights to which uninspired 
human ambition can ascend, — the heavens are not higher 
above the earth than his claim above theirs. I select but one, 
and the biggest one that human tongue can tell, "The 
infallibility of the Pope and his vicegerency for Christ.'* 
He claims the keys of the kingdom ; others claim them too ! 
He claims though that Christ is the builder of the kingdom. 
He claims inf all ability, but claims it through Christ. He 
claims the keys of the gloomy gates of purgatory, but says 
that Christ builded up the walls. So the contrast between 
this highest form of vaulting human ambition and that of the 
divine is about the difference that existed between Jim and 
me in the days ante-bellum. I gave to Jim the keys of the 
crib. The crib and corn were mine, and I am bound to say 
that I found negro nature not much better than Papal 
nature. He would swell round and get puffed up because 
no calf could get an ear of corn without the consent of his 
sable highness. So no poor Catholic calf can get a crumb 
from the master's table unless fed out to him. When Jim 
would feel too great, I had a way of letting down his high 
stilted dignity. I wish the good Lord would try it on the 
Pope. The only reason why he don't, I think, is because 
he has nothing to do with him. What would any of you give 
to rule over the kingdom ruled over by him, the Christ? to 
control the thoughts, the lives, the actions of as many 
men ; to sway the scepter he wields ! What would you give 
to have depend on you for spiritual life millions of souls 
with a love that never ends ; to be looked upon as God's 



44 casket's book. 

equal in all his incomprehensible and infinite attributes! 
Give your souls ? Why, some claim none ; and to them it 
would be exceedingly cheap. Lives there a man on this green 
earth who believes that he has a soul to be eternally damned, 
who would not tell a thousand lies for a tithe of this influence 
and power? Well, gentlemen, Infidels who talk so glibly of 
falsehood, the way is open, and has been since Jesus said, ' ' I 
am the equal of God." Thi« is the only path left open for 
man's ambitious feet to tread; this the only form of im- 
position that has not been, now is, and will be practiced; 
this the only lie that has not been told and retold ; this the only 
way open for a grand success. Are the infidel world going 
to stand idly by, as they have done in the ages past, and let 
this poor, obscure, lonely man, stand without a rival, without 
a peer ; and admit that he did that which has not and 
cannot be done by any of them, and thereby admit their 
own inferiority? Why do not some of them try it now? 
He did it, and the result, in part at least, is before you. If 
you will look at the chances of your success, as compared 
with his, you may, perhaps, be induced to try it even now, 
and save yourselves everlasting disgrace. A failure, how- 
ever, would not be half so disgraceful as no effort. What are 
your chances to-day to succeed ? Are not all your surround- 
ings more favorable than were his ? You perhaps are rich ; 
he was poor ! So poor, indeed, he had not where to lay his 
weary head ; poorer than the birds of the air or the foxes of 
the hills. You perhaps were born in a palace ; he was 
cradled in a manger. Your family influence may gather 
within its circle crowned heads and mitred brows. You 
have friends whose influence could strongly advance your 
claims if you only had the nerve to set it up. You are a 
graduate of some high college of learning, and understand 
the sciences, and could bring vast mental resources to aid 



** WHO DO MEN SAY THAT I THE SON OF MAN AM?" 45 

you in the enterprise. He had no influential friends. The 
few he had were a disgrace to him in the world's estimation. 
Learning he had none. If ever in the history of time man 
engaged in an enterprise that seemed utterly hopeless, 
without a single fact or circumstance on which a sane man 
could hang a hqpe of success, this was that enterprise. He 
sets out to build an institution and, according to infidelity, 
makes a lie the starting point. Commences his work among 
the Jews, and his first utterance, if false, daringly degrades 
and blasphemes their God — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob. Strange, too, he makes his own death the chief 
corner stone of his kingdom. He must die before the build- 
ing can be begun, and then who are to carry out his plans 
and how ? The whole is to be left in the hands of twelve 
ignorant fishermen, and the first work to be done by them is 
to crush out the religious education, training, and feeling of 
their lives ; to throttle their own religion, that of their 
fathers, and of their nation. The material left in their 
hands, out of which this new temple was to be constructed, 
was of a mixed and most antagonistic character. The 
prejudiced, stiff-necked, proud, and imperious Jews, who had 
for fifteen hundred years regarded themselves the only elect 
of God, as the only people whom he could or whom he 
ever intended to bless ; who hated the Gentiles, and called 
them dogs ; hated the Samaritans no less bitterly — and their 
hatred was reciprocated with interest by these people. 

Out of this antagonizing and discordant material must 
this temple be erected ; must this building rise ! This heter- 
ogeneous mass of material must be brought together, 
moulded, fashioned and builded ; brought from the Jewish 
temple, from Mount Gerizim, from the idol temples of the 
Gentile world, each bringing with him his prejudices and 
his race hatred. 



46 , casket's book. 

The principles that were to bind and cement them to- 
gether, struck down all pride, national and personal, drove 
out all self and self reliance, pandered to no unhallowed 
elements in fallen human nature. And j^et, with these ma- 
terials and from these sources, these men went to work, 
and grandly, wonderfully did they succeed. Bound to- 
gether as a band of brethren, forgetting all nationalities, 
castes, distinctions and differences, they met together, wor- 
shiped together, builded together for a habitation of the 
Holy Spirit, the body of Christ. That they did succeed is 
an undenied historic fact, succeeded in the face of, and in 
defiance to an opposition against which no other undertaking 
ever did succeed ; succeeded against the learning, the talent, 
the religion of the world ; against the political and ecclesi- 
astic powers ; against thrones and crowns ; against kings 
and priests — accomplishing more with that one ' ' preposter- 
ous lie" than all the combined hosts of infidelity ever ac- 
complished, with all its boasted truths. They built up 
churches on this foundation all over the land of Judea, in 
Samaria, and in the uttermost parts of the civilized world ; 
not only growing with a rapidity unprecedented, but im- 
proving the moral status of their converts, correcting the 
irregularities of their lives ; controlling their thoughts, their 
hearts and their actions. Such was their exalted character, 
their worst foes were bound to admit, with admiration, the 
purity and nobility of their lives. 

Now, upon the infidel assumption that the Christian plea 
is false, what a stupendous miracle we have ! That the men 
and women who enshrined in their hearts this ' ' imposter, ' ' 
this " prince of pretenders," grew pure and holy just in the 
ratio of their faith in him, and that their happiness increased 
with their increasing faith and love, when the reverse should 
have been the result. Had not some mighty power inter- 



"who do men say that I THE SON OF MAN AM?" 47 

posed, over-riding all laws of cause and effect, they ought 
to have assimilated him they loved and have become like 
him ; and while they could not have attained to the height or 
depth of the crime ; while it was impossible for any of them 
to tell the "monstrous lie" they ought, and would have 
come as near him as they could by telling all others that 
came within their reach. Their morals, following such a 
guide, ought to have become so corrupt that they would 
have been a stench in the nostrils of the vilest heathen in 
the land. We still press the question: Why not imitate 
" this man" now? 

As before stated, you will hardly urge conscientious 
scruples, judging from the morality of the family and their 
utter disregard of truth. I can deliberately say that I never 
read an infidel author ; that I cannot convict of falsehood 
from his own words. The only other reason that can be 
given is fear of failure. But this did not deter Him ! Is He 
greater than you all? Had He more courage than you? 
He blazed out the path and walked therein; and you^ 
pitiful coward, tremble to follow in His footsteps, and 
yet you claim to stand among the advanced thinkers ! But, 
you say, he lived in a credulous age when the people were 
full of superstition and were easily humbugged. True 
enough, and so do you live in such an age. "But we are 
living in an age of light and progress ! ' ' True, and super- 
stition has progressed as rapidly as anything else. ' ' We live 
in the nineteenth century, and a thousand scientific suns are 
pouring their light upon our paths." Yes, and a thousand 
more will rise and shine, and yet the mists of superstition 
will blind our eyes, and its sombre cloud overshadow us. 
I have read the superstitions of ancient and modern times ; 
wandered back into the dim and shadowy labyrinths of the 
earliest mythology, and if I have ever found a people more 



48 casket's book. 

superstitious than the American people, I have forgotten 
their name. If I have found an age surpassing the boasted 
nineteenth century, I fail to call it up. True, our supersti- 
tions are not as gross as theirs ; nevertheless they are just 
as much superstitions. Now, you may select any supersti- 
tion from out the past, and I will select one from the present, 
and if mine does not weigh down yours, then I give up the 
point. I select one from "the Church" — so called — 
taught in colleges, believed by great minds, and loved by 
great hearts, carrying on its face the seal of infallibility — I 
allude to the Roman dogma of transubstantiation, which 
means, quoting from the Council of Trent, and practiced by 
the priesthood, that by the use of three words, a wafer made 
of the flour ground at the mill is converted into the body, 
soul, blood, and divinity of Jesus Christ ! On what proof does 
this enormous blasphemy rest ? We must measure the proof 
so that we can measure the depth of the credulity. Their first 
proof is found in Matthew, xxvi:26. "And as they were 
eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed and brake it, and gave 
to his disciples ; and said take eat, this is my body. And 
he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying : 
Drink ye all of it. ' * I believe there is no difference in re- 
gard to the rules of interpretation to be applied to the Bible, 
and to all other books, viz. : That words are to be taken in 
their plain common sense, literal meaning, unless insepar- 
able obstacles intervene, which of necessity drive us to the 
metaphorical ; something in the nature of the case, in the 
history of the facts, that precludes the literal meaning. 
This declaration of Christ is either literal or figurative. 
Rome says, literal ; Protestantism says, figurative. We now 
point out some of the difficulties that Rome must meet and 
overcome, or give up her literal interpretation. 

The first is, she has two bodies instead of one, the body of 



"who do BDEN say that I THE SON" OF MAN AM?" 49 

flesh, holding in its hands the body of bread ; the living hold- 
ing the dead : If the bread body was the one broken, then 
they eat a dead body, and depend on that to give them life ; 
if it was not the dead, then they have no body at all. For 
two reasons: First, the living body was not then broken, 
and if the word broken is literal, it never was broken! 
" Not a bone of him," said the prophet, " shall be broken." 

The second difficulty grows out of the fact that two things 
were to be done by the disciples, two separate and distinct 
things, differing in all essentials — eating and drinking. 
They were to eat the bread, and drink the wine. When they 
can prove that two things can be done by doing one ; then 
and not till then can they save their literal interpretation. 

A third is, the monstrous absurdity of eating blood not 
coagulated, not cooked, eating soul, eating divinity! Each 
communicant has the body of Christ in his body, and yet is 
no larger than he was before. Has the soul of Christ in 
him ; and were I left to decide the case, I would decide, that 
instead of his having two souls, after this cannibal feast of 
flesh and blood ; he is soulless. He has eaten the divinity 
of Christ, yet he is a greater sinner than he was before. 

Fourth, transubstantiation makes Christ eat himself ! "I 
will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine till I drink 
it anew with you — in my Father's Kingdom." When in his 
Father's Kingdom, he converted the bread into his body, 
soul, blood and divinity, he devoured himself! 

Fifth, it clothes the priest with creative power, and makes 
him the equal of God. God, by the word of his power 
created the heavens and the earth. The priest with a wafer 
as a basis creates the divinity of Christ, and that is his 
Godhood. Creates his body, his soul and his blood, for the 
bread contained neither until the priest did his work ! 

Sixth, it compels man to repudiate all his senses — 

4 



50 casket's book. 

the only avenues through which all knowledge and faith 
come. True, he depends upon the sense of sight, when he 
reads, "This is my body." But suppose I deny that it so 
reads, how does he prove it? By the sense of sight! But, 
the same witness looks at the bread and says, bread, not 
flesh. The witness has contradicted himself, and must be 
ruled out of court. The rule adopted by all, for the correc- 
tion of any one of the senses, when we suspect that we are 
misled, is to bring other of the senses to our aid. The eye 
having deceived us, either in regard to the reading or the 
bread, we call to our aid, the touch, the taste, the smell, the 
hearing. These all say, bread ! Then we appeal to science — 
and chemistry says, bread ! And yet you are called upon to 
deny the combined evidence of all the senses, and believe, 
or say you believe, that it is flesh, blood, soul, divinity — or 
be damned ! If damnation is not too bad I would rather bear 
it and save my senses, than to be saved without them! 
Allow a priest to pocket all my senses, and put an interpre- 
tation on the Bible, at war with them all, at war with all the 
facts, all the history ; at war with reason, common sense, 
and science ! ! 

Seventh. It makes the worship of devils better than the 
worship of God. Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians, 
x:20. " The Gentiles sacrifice to devils. They are partak- 
ers of the table of devils. And drink the cup of devils." 
How did they do this ? They offered to devils the flesh of 
animals, and then ate it in honor of devils. What do Catho- 
hcs? They offer to God the flesh of his son, and eat it to 
honor him! The heathen drank the blood of sacrificed 
animals ; the Catholic drinks the blood of Christ. If the 
heathen had lost all his sense as the Catholic has on this sub- 
ject, and got a priest of the devil to have transubstantiated 
for them, it would have been a stroke of economy. They 



"who do IVIEN SAY THAT I THE SON OF MAN AM?" 51 

could then have fed upon the devil and saved their meat. 
The Catholic programme is much the cheapest. All they 
need is a wafer about as big as a quarter of a dollar and the 
priest creates the balance! 

Eighth. It precludes the possibility of commemorating the 
Savior's death. " Do this in remembrance of me." Eat a 
body in remembrance of a body! Eat bread in remem- 
bance of bread ! drink wine in remembrance of wine ! We 
can partake of one thing in memory of another, but to par- 
take of the same thing in memory of itself, is more than in- 
sanity run mad. 

Ninth, and last. It places God's Son in a condition that 
humiliation may be heaped upon Him, such as never en- 
tered the minds of His most malignant foes ; such as befell 
Him under my own observation. A drunken priest, " tran- 
substantiated," and at the same time he had more whiskey 
in his stomach than grace in his heart. He fed his flock on 
the bread and drank all the wine himself. It did not agree 
with him. — Imagine the rest. 

Do you ask for more superstition than this? Do you 
still call for greater gullibility, for profounder ignorance? 
Is there in all the annals of time anything that can compare 
with it? Perhaps the length and breadth, the chaos with 
darkness brooding over its depths of superstition, is shown 
in this more than in any other absurd dogma. It enables a 
man to accept what he knows is false. The person who can 
accept as true that a wafer of baked flour is flesh, would 
have no difficulty in accepting it as true that a rock is soft, 
that rain is dry ; or that man is a ray of moonshine. We 
fondly hope to hear no more infidel flings against the relig- 
ion of Christ, and its grand success accounted for by array- 
ing before us the credulity of the times in which it had its 
birth ; for, deep as the sea of credulity may then have been, 
a deeper one rolls its black billows around you now. 




CHAPTEE IV. 

THE MIRACULOUS CHARACTER OF CHRIST, FROM 
THE TRINITARIAN AND UNITARIAN STAND- 
POINTS. 

pHE only miraculous feature of the subject we shall 
now note, is the efforts made by these two parties 
to solve the problem in regard to who He is ! And 

"^^^ is this not a miracle, that He has been before the 
world for eighteen hundred years, and no agreement reached 
as yet in regard to who He is ? Is there any other one named 
among the sons of men, about whom a fierce controversy has 
gone on, even among his best friends, until it produced not 
only alienation of feeling, but bitter persecutions ? Such con- 
troversy culminated in rending the body of Christ in twain, 
giving birth to the two religious parties before mentioned. 
True, they agree, and always have agreed, that he is the Son of 
God. Not being content with this, they must go, or try to 
go a step further, and find out in what sense is He God's 
Son ; what is the precise relationship expressed, when this is 
applied to God and Christ. 

We briefly note their failures, and the reasons why they 
failed. Athanasius said, " He is very God." Arious said, 
"He is a man." Calvin reiterated the same, and so did 
poor Servetus, which cost him his life — unfortunately for 
the cause of truth and of Christianity. Each party, instead 
of seeking for a standpoint from which the}'' could discover 
the truth or their own ignorance, inscribed upon their ban- 
(52) 



THE MIRACULOUS CHARACTER OP CHRIST. 53 

ners, " Trinitarianism," " Unitarianism," and at once rallied 
around their creeds all available proof texts ; the one gath- 
ering around the Christ all texts where equality, oneness and 
sameness of attributes are claimed for Christ ; the other, all 
in which inequality, inferiority, subordination, are expressed 
or seemingly implied. 

In this way they gave infidelity a chance to come between 
and deliver its worst and heaviest blows against the Book 
from which the contending parties got their proof to support 
theories so antagonistic. But, leaving for the present this 
phase of the subject, which will come up again when we 
meet the infidel objections based upon alleged contradiction, 
concerning Christ, we now give the reason why neither Cal- 
vin, nor Servetus, nor any other man, living or dead, ever 
did, or ever will understand that, about which they have 
written, prayed, preached, and have been persecuted. 

The controversy has not been, as before stated, whether 
He is the Son of God or not ; but in what sense is He His 
Son? Is it not passing strange that among all the great 
thinkers of the past and of the present, not one ever dis- 
covered a single surface truth, which would have saved them 
from much harrassing thought, much unpleasant and un- 
profitable controversy, themselves from shame, and some of 
them from crime, and the garments of the church from being 
stained with blood. That surface truth ought to be well 
known by all good thinkers. 

We have in our world only two ideas of sonship ; and 
there is not wisdom enough to make a third ! Both parties 
agree that the person in controversy is not a son by natural 
generation ; not a son by adoption. They agree that He is 
Son. Having but these two ideas of sonship, and we, not able 
to create a third, ought thinkers not to have known that the}'- 
might as well have been found trying to measure eternity 



54 casket's book. 

with a tape line, as to find out what they sought? I am my 
Father's son by generation ; I am the son of my wife's 
father by law ; I fully understand these relations. But here 
is a man who is son neither by the one nor the other ; and 
yet, I must understand that which even God could not reveal ; 
or if he could, I could not understand it, unless he gave me 
a third idea of sonship. Peter himself, to whom God re- 
vealed the grand truth, that Jesus is His Son, never under- 
stood in what sense! Peter never troubled his apostolic 
head to find out ; never tried to explain ; nor did any one of 
the twelve ; nor the Apostle to the Gentile world. They 
were content with that which was revealed. He is the Son of 
God. Happy would it have been for church and world 
had all been content to stop where apostles stopped. 

I wish now to make an humble effort to relieve the doctrine 
of the Trinity, so-called in the creeds, from a heavy burden 
it has always had to bear, — the burden of mystery, — of 
incomprehensibility. Why it should have been so regarded 
by all the ancient fathers and early writers, all the modern 
ones too, is not the question now before us. To m}^ mind 
there is not in all the teachings of the Holy Book a more 
easily understood truth. It is a surface truth, a truth that 
permeates all modes of being, from the incomprehensible 
God, down through all ranks of created intelligences. 

I digress for a moment. I remember the hours of in- 
tense thought on the subject in years long gone by ; the 
hundreds of pages read! All the books read, began or 
ended with the declaration, that it was an incomprehensible 
mystery not to be understood. 

Strange, passing strange, that it never occurred to them 
to let it alone. Why start the poor reader out on a path 
that had no end? Why cause him to waste his time and 
thought on that which he could no more comprehend at the 



THE MIRACULOUS CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 55 

end than at the beginning? If a mystery, then it belongs to 
God and not to us. The last I read was from the pen of 
the great Dr. Watson, of the M. E. Church, more than 
thirty years ago. I threw his book across the room in pro- 
found disgust, and have read nothing on it of man's writing 
since, and never shall. Pardon this digression, and we will 
return to the subject. 

Much of the mist, fog and confusion that has shrouded 
the subject has grown out of an unfortunate selection of 
words. In Trinitarian parlance, we have three persons in 
one God-head — Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I use the 
same jargon of words, and apply them to man. All the 
angels in heaven could get no idea from them. Three per- 
sons in one man-head, father, son and cousin ! ! 

Suppose they had said, three persons — one nature. This 
would have expressed the truth, and no mind would have 
become confused. This brings us back to the plainness and 
simplicity of the truth of Trinitarianism. I use another 
scholastic phrase, " Trinity in unity, and unity in Trinity." 
True, but not happily expressed. Leaving the language of 
the schools, let us express the thoughts in the words of 
plain common sense, and then we will get the Biblical idea : 
Unity in nature ; divisibility in person ; three persons — 
ONE NATURE. Is uot this truc in regard to all beings in the 
heavens above or the earth beneath? And where is the 
great mystery that ghost-hunting theologians have conjured 
up from the vasty deep of the see of Rome, that will not 
down at their bidding. For, really, this is the first cup of 
the wine of her fornication that she pressed to lips of the 
nations. They drank, and have been staggering to and fro, 
from that day to the present. There are four natures 
taught in the Scriptures. There are two elements that enter 
into all of them. Each of the natures has its name or 



56 casket's book. 

names. First, the divine ; second, the human ; third, the 
angelic ; fourth, the demoniacal. The names of the first 
are God, "I Am," "Jehovah;" the second is "Man," 
generically; the third, "Angel;" fourth, "Devil." The 
nature is a unit ; it is one, and indivisible. Wherever di- 
vine nature is found, that is God, not man, angel nor devil. 

Jesus Christ is divine — therefore God ; so is the Holy 
Spirit. Suppose there were but one person whose nature is 
divine, then what would we have? Two unities, one nature, 
one person. But suppose there are then three persons. 
Then we have one nature, three persons. But suppose 
there were ten. Then there would be ten persons, and still 
but the one God — the one divine nature, the name of which 
is God ! Is it any more mysterious that there should be 
three persons with an uncreated nature, than that there 
should be three men with a created nature? Three persons, 
one divine nature ; and that nature called God, is, to my 
mind, just as plain as three men, one human nature, and 
that nature called man. And yet, such is the blinding in- 
fluence of education, that even our preachers, who have 
more Biblical knowledge than all the religious world com- 
bined, had a long and an unpleasant controversy over it, 
and finally compromised by agreeing to say nothing about 
it, or to simply say what the Scriptures said, without note 
or comment. 

I do not profess to understand the divine nature, nor do 
I understand angel or devil nature. Nor do I enter at all 
upon the proof that Jesus Christ is God. Admitting it to 
be true, all I aim at is to rid the subject of this incubus. 
Having done this, I am now ready to notice the use infidel- 
ity has made of the conflict between those theories, after 
briefly noticing an effort on the part of some to evade the 
Trinitarian hypothesis, by adopting an emanation theory — 



THE MIRACULOUS CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 57 

That God created that which was known in the beginning 
as Word, and as Spirit, and imparted to them His own na- 
ture. If this were true, we would still have Trinitarianism. 
For, the nature imparted, or emanating, is as much God as 
that from which it emanated. We have, then, two persons 
with a two-fold nature, a created and an uncreated. The 
uncreated is God ; as much so after the emanation, or the 
impartation as before. Still the one nature, the one God 
and three persons. Why should this, even if true, be re- 
garded as such a great mystery? Is it any more strange 
and incomprehensible that God should impart His entire na- 
ture to Son and to Holy Spirit, than that He should create 
us so that we impart our whole compound nature to our 
children ! 

And now to the diflficulties and carpings of infidelity. I 
shall not ramble over the large array of proof texts, used on 
both sides of the subject ; but select a few that present the 
sharpest and clearest cut apparent conflict ; or as infidelity 
says, palpable contradictions ; and I think I will show that 
they are not only true, but that there is not even the shadow 
of contradiction. "I am the equal of the Father," "The 
Father is greater than I,'' "I and the Father are one," 
' ' The Father sent me, ' ' In these texts quoted from both 
sides we have unity, divisibilty, equality, and inferiority. 
Infidelity, and Christianity too, in some of their teachings, 
seem to ignore the fact that this miraculous personage, about 
whom this controversy originated and has been carried on, 
is a compound being ; two natures blended — the divine and 
the human — God, Man ; God manifest in the flesh. Divest 
him, as Unitarianism does, of his divinity, and the wisdom 
of the world can't harmonize the Scripture teachings on the 
subject. The contradictions are clear, positive, and unmis- 
takable. Divest him, as the Gnostics did, and some Hyper- 



58 casket's book. 

Trinitarians have almost done, of his humanity, and the 
result is the same. 

Christ not only has two natures, but had, and has an offi- 
cial relationship. A statement made by himself, or the 
Holy Spirit through an apostle, when properly applied is 
true and will never be contradicted by any other declaration, 
when applied to that part of his nature to which it should 
and must be applied, without doing injustice and wrong to 
the writer or speaker. " I and the Father are one." Applj^ 
this to his personality, and you not only make the declara- 
tion absurd and false, but you make a fool of yourself! 
One in nature. Apply it to his divine nature, where it be- 
longs ; and then hold up your hands, not in feigned horror 
and wonder at the Book, but at your own stupidity. " The 
Father is greater than I." Apply this to his divine nature, 
and you but repeat the same folly. The divine writers in 
giving to us the character of this wonderful personage, must 
portray a twofold nature, with their attributes. The wis- 
dom of God — the ignorance of man ; the strength of God 
and the weakness of man. And we poor ignorant creatures 
of a day have made sad havoc of the truths uttered by mis- 
appropriating them, in our intemperate zeal, to sustain a 
dogma, or to get rid of our duty to believe the record that 
God has given of his Son. 

Now, I propose to affirm of the President of these United 
States, and of myself, just what Christ affirmed of his Father 
and Himself. The President and I are one ; I am the equal 
of the President ; the President is greater than I. Some 
friend writes my biography, and makes these statements — 
all of which are true. The book falls into the hands of 
these advanced thinkers, these infidels, who have all the 
religious sense that is left, who have harped upon and 
gloated over these boasted contradictions and absurdities. 



THE MIRACULOUS CHARACTER OP CHRIST. 59 

They seize with avidity upon the book ; they hold the author 
up to be condemned and ridiculed, "Why, the writer per- 
petrates the monstrously absurd proposition, that the Pres- 
ident and Caskey are one person." Now, you have done it, 
have you not? Could you hope to find a reader in the walks 
of men that you could hope to induce to believe that the 
writer was thinking of personality, or thinking there ever 
would be a man in the world outside an asylum that would 
think he meant any such thing? The President and I are 
one in nature ; he is a man, and so am I. Officially, he is 
greater than I ; as to rights and privileges political, we are 
equal. So of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — one, and equal 
in nature, different in person, differing officially, Christ 
took on himself our nature. In other words, the divine 
nature allied itself to human nature and dwelt among the 
dead. He humbled himself and became obedient to the 
death of the Cross ; and for this humiliation God hath highly 
exalted him at his own right hand in the heavens. He was 
made lower than the angels, not in nature, as some teach 
who have elevated angel nature above human, and sing^ "I 
want to be an angel," but in being subjected to the humblest 
social position, to the most extreme poverty, to the most 
humiliating treatment by his foes, and not allowed to open 
his mouth in his defense. " For as a lamb is dumb before 
its shearers, so opened he not his mouth. In his humiliation 
his judgment was taken away ; and who shall declare his 
generation. For his life is cut off from the earth." It 
reached the depths of humiliation and dishonor in the grave, 
where his body slept, and in hades, where his soul dwelt. 
We shall here close the lecture, fondly hoping that other 
minds will be aided in their thoughts on the subject, and 
that the infidel reader may see that he has sinned against 
God and self in the use he has made of the mistakes of the 
parties in the controversy. 



CHAPTEE V. 

CHRIST IN PROPHECY. 

" Of which salvation the prophets have inquired, and searched 
diligently." — I. Peter, i : 10. 

'N looking at this wonderful personage from the pro- 
phetic standpoint, the first question of importance to 
be settled is, whether these men spoke as moved by 
^ the Holy Ghost, or are their utterances, as infidelity 
claims, but the utterance of their own uninspired thoughts? 
If by the Holy Spirit, then, of course, they are miraculous. 
Some uniform law in abeyance was held when they put forth 
these declarations, which the Bible calls prophecies. If not 
inspired, they are still equally miraculous. The proof of 
this is found in the character of the things said by them 
concerning Christ : Found in the number, variety and diver- 
sity of statements — more particularly in the fact that no pro- 
phetic mind, when thinking of Christ, ever lingered along 
the medium plane of thought. The uniform law of mind is, 
that we advance step by step, embracing in our mental pro- 
cesses all the intermediate steps until we reach the extreme. 
This mental law was set aside by the prophets, and a power 
above all law winged their thoughts from one extreme to the 
other. The visions of Christ that passed in panorama before 
them, the metaphors used to present him to the world, all 
partake of this miraculous feature. And these extremes 
was what perplexed their mind so that they could not, and 
did not, understand their own prophecies ; therefore did they 
(60) 



CHRIST IN PROPHECY. 61 

"search diligently" to find out what, or what manner of 
time, and what manner of person it was of whom they 
talked. But all was hid from them — and even from angels 
hid ; for we are told that they earnestly desired to look into 
these things. It was not for them, but for us. The 
prophets were not making revelations for themselves, nor to 
themselves. God placed in the hands of his prophets a tel- 
escope by which they penetrated the mist and fog that 
enveloped coming ages ; and glorious visions of this mysteri- 
ous person were unveiled to them. They try to tell us what 
they saw — wonders which they did not understand, but 
which in part we do. 

These prophecies form the first link in the chain of divine 
evidence by which the Christ to human hearts is bound. To 
a few of them we now attend. The prophet directs his tel- 
escope upon an out-spreading forest, and amidst its great 
trees and waving shrubs he sees a couchant lion — the king 
of beasts of prey — at whose blood-curdling roar meaner 
beasts seek- their dark hiding-places. The prophet says, I 
see him now ; he is the Lion of the tribe of Judah ! 

Not satisfied with this, he looks again, and in a different 
direction. Now on his vision rises a pasture green, and 
thereon a lamb — the most timid of all the animal creation ; 
so timid that when first it bent its little head to slake its 
thirst from the running brook it was frightened at its own 
shadow, and on fleet foot fled away. The two extremes are 
reached. No intermediate link in the animal chain is touched. 
Will the infidel permit me to ask him, Under what mental law 
were these minds acting ; what could have suggested to them 
the idea of presenting a person under two metaphors so 
diverse? Can anything resembling this be found in all the 
past or present in the flights of fancy, or wild conceits of 
imagination run mad ? The prophet next points his telescope 



62 casket's book. 

to the starry heavens, and two metaphors are suggested. I 
see him now. He is the Sun of Eighteousness that rises 
over the moral darkness of the world with healing in his 
wings. Again he appears as a twinkling star, and the prophet 
exclaims, He is the star of Bethlehem — the bright and morn- 
ing star that heralds the dawn of a day so brilliant it shall 
chase all night away from the land of shadows and of death. 
The extremes again are reached — from the sun to a star ! 
Then he looks to the vegetable kingdom. Here the coming 
one is the blooming rose of Sharon, blushing in the beauty 
of God. And now, he is a root out of dry ground, without 
form or comeliness — no glor}^ — nothing attractive in its 
appearance. Are you surprised that the prophet's mind was 
perplexed over these strange visions, and that he did earnestly 
inquire what they meant? He gazed upon his countenance, 
scarred and marred. There is no form nor comeliness in 
him that we should desire him ; his visage is more marred 
than the visage of any other man. Such was his repulsive 
appearance that the prophet seems to grow sick at heart, 
and turns away, for he says : " We hid, as it were, our faces 
from him ! " From this he looks out upon a vision of beauty 
such as eye had never seen before, and in joy he exclaims: 
"He is the fairest among ten thousand, and the one alto- 
gether lovely ! " The pass is from extreme to extreme ; from 
sickening deformity to beauty in astonishing perfection. 
Two other visions rise up before the prophet, and he thinks 
he understands it now, at least in part. " Who is this that 
from Edom comes with garments died in blood ? that travels 
in the greatness of his strength? whose warrior tread be- 
speaks him victor on blood-stained fields?" While still 
gazing with trembling awe upon this hero in crimson-stained 
apparel the vision disappears, and in its place there stands 
The Prince of Peace ! 



CHRIST IN PROPHECY. 63 

He sees him when in his humiliation his judgment was 
taken away and there was none to declare his generation. 
For his life was cut off from the earth. He sees him when 
in the form of a servant ; when he became obedient to the 
death of the Cross ; when, in the grave, he sleeps ; when he 
awakes, puts his hands on the pillars of death and hell, and 
they crumble beneath his touch. He sees him stand before 
God when the sentence of Pilate's bar is reversed, amidst 
the acclamations of angel hosts ! 

From the grave to glory the prophet follows him in all 
these changes and extremes. 

This same miraculous thread runs through the teachings 
of Christ and his apostles. The Savior says, "I am the 
bread of life. " ' ' I am the living water of which, if a man 
drink, he shall thirst no more!" Both Christ and the 
prophets talk of him as the foundation stone — the chief 
corner-stone — the key-stone of the grand spiritual temple — 
the cap-stone that holds together the spanning archway — 
the stone by the builders rejected, but chosen of God, and 
dear to us. 

It was those extremes that were constantly mingling in 
Christ that perplexed the minds not only of prophets, but 
also of his disciples. During the years of his personal min- 
istry this kept them in constant doubt whether he was God 
or man. When the angry waves rolled high and the vessel 
plunged, like the wounded, maddened horse on the battle- 
field ; when his voice was heard commanding the winds and the 
troubled waves, " Be still!" then they thought he was God, 
but, when he hungered, and slept, and grew weary they 
thought he was but a man. When, by the grave of the 
sleeping brother of Mary and Martha, he stood and wept, 
they thought him a man ; but when in a loud voice he said 
to the dead, " Lazarus, come forth!" and the dead obeyed 



64 caskey's book. 

his awful command, then they said, surely he is nothing less 
than God ! And thus their minds were tossed from divinity 
to humanity ; and they were compelled to wait a time with 
patience until the proof of his Godhood grew stronger ; until 
more light was given and their doubts were 'forever set 
at rest. 

But, to return to the prophecies : I grant that many of 
them are seemingly unmeaning and no lessons teach us until 
we acquaint ourselves in some degree with the symbolism 
of the Bible. All symbols are unmeaning to the unin- 
structed. But to the initiated — the enlightened — they are 
full of meaning. They address themselves to the eye — one 
of the most important avenues to the mind. You enter, for 
instance, a Masonic lodge. The walls are covered with sym- 
bols. In the east the letter G is suspended, the all-seeing 
eye, the lamb, the square, the compass, the sprig of aca- 
cia. What is all this to you, unless you are among the sons 
of light? And what impressions are made upon your mind? 
Nothing taught, nothing understood ! No emotions stirred, 
except, perhaps, a little curiosity — a little wonder, as you 
ask, what do all these signs and symbols mean? To the 
initiated there is by each an important lesson taught. Each 
symbol has a tongue of silent eloquence. God is the author 
of symbolism. Persons may be symbolized, so may places 
and events. Indeed, its language is world-wide. In order 
to get you to appreciate and understand the importance of 
symbols, and to prepare our minds and hearts to receive the 
lessons taught in prophetic symbolism, I select the Lord's 
supper : The bread and wine are symbols of a body broken 
and of flowing blood. They represent a person and an 
event. And God has so constituted our minds that we can- 
not stop mental processes by an act of volition. When we 
think of one thing, we are compelled to think of another ; 



CHRIST IN PROPHECY. 65 

when we perform a certain act it gives birth to a certain 
thought, and that thought to an emotion. So we can not 
break the consecrated loaf in memory of a broken body with- 
out thinking of Christ, whose body was broken ; and we 
can not think of Christ's dying love for us, without an emo- 
tion of love for Christ. Thus by the simple act of breaking 
bread, the whole mental and moral natures of man are set 
in motion. Christ is enshrined in the loving hearts of all 
who keep the sacred feast. This is the end to be accom- 
plished, and these the means employed. This purpose has 
engaged the highest thoughts and greatest actions of our 
loving heavenly Father. The consideration of some of the 
divine efforts to enthrone the Son in human hearts, will 
bring us back to the design of prophetic symbols. First, 
we have Christ in promise. Second. Christ in type. Third. 
Christ in prophecy. Fourth. Christ in fact. Fifth. Christ 
in history. Sixth. Christ in monumental or commemorative 
institutions. 

In promise — ^" The seed of the woman shall bruise the 
serpent's head;" and to Abraham — " In thy seed shall all 
the families of the earth be blessed;" in type, the offering 
of Isaac on the altar of sacrifice. Abraham through type 
saw the Son of God suffer death on the same mount. God 
had placed his Son in Abraham's heart through this type. 
Jesus says, "Abraham saw my day and was glad." We have 
two types at the Jewish altar of sacrifices : the sacrificial 
and the scape goat. The sins of the nation were confessed, 
and by the hands of the high priest transferred to the. head 
of the victim ; the blow descended, the head was severed, 
the blood flowed, death ensued, the atonement made. This 
taught in type that Christ, the antitype, would bear our sins 
in his own body. He was not only to bear our sins and sor- 
rows, but they were to be borne away forever. In this type 

6 



66 casket's book. 

there was a yearly remembrance of sins. After his sacrifice 
for sins, there was to be no more remembrance of sins. 
Hence the incompleteness of the type and the necessity 
of another. And thus the Lamb of God bears all our sins 
away. In the idolatrous and darkened land of Egypt, where 
the paschal lamb was slain and a nation saved by blood, and 
on which we dwell not now, but hasten on to the prophetic 
symbols. All these symbols, like the types over which we 
have passed, are God's called and sent preachers. All but 
the continued and marvelously varied efforts of God to place 
his Son upon the thrones of all hearts and keep him there. 
When we consider that wonderful piece of mechanism, and 
consider with the Psalmist, how fearfully and wonderfully 
we are made, and the great diversities of mind, heart, and 
temperament, together with the multiplied and different 
methods of access and control, and then look at what the 
Bible says that God has done, for silly man to reach the con- 
clusion that it is a human invention ; that any human would 
ever have thought of those types and adumbrations ; would 
ever have dreamed of clothing the person whom they desired 
to dwell in us with those. There is a knowledge of man's 
nature and weakness and wants that the combined wisdom 
of the world now, with all the accumulated wisdom of ages, 
could not devise a plan to meet. The truth is, that neither 
church nor world have had sense enough to comprehend it, 
after it has been arranged by the divine mind and spread 
out before them. Hence their failure to understand and 
appreciate the prophetic symbols and their design. We 
have already stated that they are God's called and sent 
preachers of his Son to the world. The sun mounts his 
golden pulpit in the east at early morn and eloquently pro- 
claims Christ till evening shades appear. Who that has read 
and thought of the prophecy can look out upon the golden 



CHRIST IN PROPHECY. 67 

god of day and see him brightly shine, and not think of 
Christ ? God has identified the name of Jesus with the sun 
by throwing His light around and clothing him with it as 
with a garment. He is the sun of righteousness. Then 
through the eye the Savior comes when on the sun we look. 
But amen is said and his pulpit vacated ; but not for long. 
Till forth comes the starry hosts of preachers bright. The 
text of each is Christ. Each twinkling orb proclaims the 
hand that made us is divine, and that hand is Christ's. We 
cannot look up at the shining stars and not think of Christ 
any more than we can break the bread and not think of his 
broken body, provided we have studied the one lesson as. 
well as we have the other. He is the Star of Bethlehem ^— 
the bright and morning star. But dark clouds may gather 
o'er us, and their silvery- threaded rays be obscured. True 
enough ; but we will not long be left without a preacher, 
for the clouds will soon open their eyes, which, are brimful 
of accumulating tears, and weep them out on the thirsty 
earth, rejoicing the heart of man and beast, reviving the 
drooping and withering flowers, cooling the heated bosom of 
mother earth, refreshing the furrows of the new-plowed 
field and causing them to laugh in gladness. But better for 
our souls than all this, they make us think of Christ. " I am 
the water of life." Every drop of water that falls from an 
overhanging cloud, that surges in the deep, deep sea when 
her waves are lifted up and tempest- tossed, that rushes in 
the rivers, that gurgles in the running brooks, or ripples in 
the singing rills, preaches. If we hear the rush and roar of 
mighty waters, he reaches mind and heart through the ear. 
If we look upon the placid lake or tossing billows, 
then he comes through the eye. The very stones beneath 
our feet, on which we thoughtlessly tread, preach 
to us. He is the foundation stone ; the rock of 



68 casket's book. 

offenses ; the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. 
We eat our daily bread, for which we give thanks. I 
wonder if the Christian world gets nothing more of the 
bread than does the horse or hog that eats the husks. If 
not, I fear that they have not been listening to this called 
and sent preacher, or have not understood his sermon, but 
have been hearing some other who claimed to be called ; 
have not studied prophetic lore. There is to him who under- 
stands this sermon by the bread preacher a spiritual as well 
as physical feast. He eats his bread and feeds on Christ. I 
am the bread. We put to our thirsty lips the cooling cup to 
quench our thirst. God intended that his children should 
get more out of the sparkling water than this, and therefore 
he indissolubly bound the name of his Son with that element. 
But if we choose not to study his symbols and use the means 
he has given to make us think of Christ, and we fail to get 
a spiritual draught with the brimming cup of water, and 
choose to let the thirsty ox our equal be, the fault is ours, 
and not his. We hold in our hand the blushing rose, admire 
its beauty and inhale its aroma, and through senses of sight 
and smell, Christ enters our thoughts and feelings. He is 
the rose of Sharon. We look on deformity and think of 
him. He is a root out of dry ground, no form or comeliness 
in him. On beauteous face and form we look, and think of 
him, the fairest among ten thousand. We hear the roar of 
the lion, or the bleating of the lamb ; we see the form of the 
fierce forest king, or the timid, fleeing lamb, and through 
the eye and ear the blessed Jesus comes. The infinite wis- 
dom of this programme will be more manifest when we con- 
sider the different classes of character with all their divine, 
mental and moral idiosyncrasies, habits of thought, educa- 
tion, natural proclivities, etc. Whatever every person in 
heaven, or upon the earth seeks access to, their hearts seek 



CHRIST IN PROPHECY. 69 

to dwell in and control ; must know all the avenues of ingress 
and the best means to employ. We have two classes of 
character in the world — both, of course, wrong by nature 
and worse wrong by vicious education — each, perhaps, fol- 
lowing a natural proclivity. There are all the intermediates 
between these extremes, of which we take no note at present. 
Both of these classes can be reached and brought to Christ, 
and be made partakers to some extent of the divine nature. 
But they must be approached through means adapted to 
them as they are not as they ought to be. The extremes 
are the aristocrat and the agrarian — the one always looking 
up, the other down. The aristocrat despises poverty, looks 
down on manual toil, draws a distinction world-wide between 
a cartman and Congressman, judges a man not from what 
he is but from what his ancestry were, asks not about his 
head, his heart, or his life. But did he come from the Old 
Dominion, and is he a descendant from or a member of the 
first families of Virginia? It has never been my fortune to 
meet with any other. They have a profound regard for 
nobility, and would freely spend time and money in toadying 
to the Prince of "Wales, who has not more mind than Solo- 
mon, and whose morals would do no credit to a tramp. But 
he is the son of a queen. From this pernicious soil the upas 
plant has sprung, grown, bloomed, and borne the fruit of 
death — death to morals, death to person and death to 
purse — death to States ; and, if it was not held in check, 
would be death to this Republic. It crept into the church of 
the living God and changed its entire organization. In the 
church there was no official greatness. Even the idea could 
not be found, did not exist. Men in the church, finding 
they could not greatness attain through their brain and heart 
power, went to work and created offices unknown, got Bible 
into them, and wrapped themselves in the mantle of great- 



70 



CASKEY S BOOK. 



ness, for who could fail to venerate the vicegerent of Christ? 
Who withhold respect from a successor of the apostles ? Who 
fail to regard a bishop above all others ? Is he a wiser man ? 
Is he a better man? Does he more work than others? Does 
he sacrifice more for Christ than others ? No. Then why 
respect him more? 'Tis purely ofiiicial, and is of the devil, 
and we are educated to respect the robe of office, even if 
worn by the devil. Hence, corrupt popes and wicked bishops 
have been revered and obeyed by the membership of this 
human invention called churches. This class gave birth to 
the pernicious idea that has wrought untold evils and inju- 
ries. The idea of menial labor, that certain kinds of work 
are degrading ; that a first-class gentleman could not engage 
therein, measuring the man by that which he did, as if man's 
standing was to be graded and classified by his occupation. 
In other words, his calling must confer respectability upon 
him. God's rule is, the man should confer dignity on what 
he does ; but I presume the commodity grew so beauti- 
fully less that the rule had to be reversed. The reader 
will pardon me for dwelling so long on this great and blight- 
ing curse. I have suffered intensely from it. It drove me 
from the loved State of my adoption ; it sent to untimely 
and dishonored graves many of my then young friends that 
I loved for their fathers' sake. They had been reared in the 
lap of luxury — sons and daughters of wealth — been taught 
to look down with a feeling of pity or contempt on certain 
sorts of work, particularly that of driving a wagon to city 
or town, and selling out the loads. This was a work done 
by the negro and those that the aristocratic negroes called 
poor white trash — the backwoods toilers and tillers of the 
soil. That class of whites stood with them about on a par 
with the slave. They did not have sense enough then, nor 
have they yet, to separate the thing done from the doer, — 



CHRIST IN PROPHECY. 71 

chained the doer and the thing done together — and their 
pride revolted. They were ashamed to work, too proud to 
beg, and afraid to steal. There was but one other avenue 
open, and that was office, big or little. To get office, the 
colored vote had to be won. To do this, the voter had to be 
button-holed on the streets, treated in the saloons. For a 
Southern-raised man to do this he lost his self-respect, and 
then all was lost. Down he went. I look back at the 
wrecked lives, and my heart grows sad. I was the first man 
who lived and moved among, labored for, and was recognized 
as belonging to what was then known as the upper circle, 
that ever drove a wagon-load of cotton into the city of 
Jackson, Miss. That wa-s in 1866. As I was going out 
home I met Dr. Louis, a Baptist preacher, going in with two 
bales of cotton. There were few men then that had the 
nerve to do it. Such was public sentiment. They have 
learned some since then, but not all yet. 

Having said this much in regard to this unfortunately 
educated class, we come back to the question of how they 
are to be approached : Shall Christ be presented to them 
as the manger-born babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, in 
the obscure village of Bethlehem? Their pride of place, of 
birth, and his poor surroundings, revolts. Shall he come to 
them as the humble, unknown boy, working at his reputed 
father's trade? They look with contempt on his calling. 
Shall he come as the poverty-smitten one, so poor he has 
not where to lay his head? Shall he come in the form of 
the lowly servant, washing the feet of his disciples ? Their 
pride cries out against the social position and the menial 
service. He cannot reach them through these manifesta- 
tions of his person and actions ; but he can and does enter 
their hearts, and dwells therein. But he comes as King of 
Kings and Lord of Lords. He comes with crowned head 



72 casket's book. 

and mitred brow. He comes in robes of light and beauty, 
not with the robe of mockery, won at Pilate's bar ; not with 
the crown of thorns ; not the hiss, the scorn and derision of 
his multitude of foes ; but with the glad acclaim of angel 
hosts. He comes as the heir of boundless wealth- — the heir 
of all worlds. Coming thus, he knocks and admittance 
gains. We turn to the other class, whose hearts he never could 
reach with this side of his miraculous character. They hate 
kings, despise nobility, abuse all greatness, have a 
profound contempt for splendor, pomp, and show. The 
more wealth a man has, the farther he is removed from 
them. They are great levelers, but level down. When this 
reaches its climax, it is Nihilism. The nearest way to their 
badly-trained hearts, is to be poorer than they. From the 
depths of lowliness and humbleness you must knock, or no 
admittance gain. They in humility will bend o'er the sleep- 
ing poverty-wrapped babe, and press a loving kiss upon his 
infant lips. The manger is in harmony with their tastes. 
His complaint that the foxes and birds are wealthier than he, 
finds a ready response in their hearts, and they gather in at 
the 6ide of his poverty, humiliation, and abandonment. They 
look, while the other class turn from these and accept him 
in his majesty, greatness, grandeur, wealth, and power. If 
this be not true will any one give a reason for his poverty — 
his humiliation. He could have died for our sins as well 
without as with. But the important question to each and 
all is, not how he entered, but has he? and does he dwell 
there by faith? A brief recapitulation of prophetic symbols, 
and we close the lecture. God through these has hung out 
the Christ from the heavens above. We look at the beauti- 
ful star-gemmed skies, and these speak of Christ ; on the 
earth, he is beneath our feet and all around us. The rocks 
on which we tread, the water we drink, the bread we eat, the 



CHRIST IN PROPHECY. 73 

rose, the lily of the valley, wherever we may be, wherever 
go, whatever do, we are in the midst of reminders of Him 
who loves us — beneath our feet and o'er our heads, and 
all around — all the symbols of this wonderful person of 
whom the prophets spoke. 




CHAPTEE YI. 

CHRIST FROM THE DIVINE, THE HUMAN, AND 
THE DEMONIACAL STANDPOINTS. 

W^HE Book teaches us that God desired the death of 
I) his Son, that man desired his death, and devils de- 
sired it. Either this is true or false. We ask not 
^p^J now whether it is of divine arrangement or a human 
invention. We simply assert what will not be denied, that 
the Bible so teaches. It is just as miraculous from the one 
standpoint as the other. If any human mind conceived the 
idea of traveling back over four thousand years to the be- 
ginning, when time was young, and of introducing God as 
setting out on this enterprise, and following it down through 
the ages, in every movement made on the chess-board of 
the world, then it was a miracle. Abel's blood-stained altar 
is a strange, wonderful thing — that first type of Christ. 
The plan of God to redeem the world from sin through the 
death of his Son was prefigured from the first. True, it was 
not then understood as it is now by us. We follow this aim 
in all the Bible says that God did ; in his dealings with his 
chosen i:)eople ; in all the famines, plagues, and pestilences, 
captivities, bondages, and deliverances ; in the promises 
made to Abraham ; in all God did with his nation, and with 
other nations. Everywhere, on every hand along the march 
of sacred history, we witness evidence of slow, steady, mani- 
fold preparation for one great end. Then in due time, and 
just at the right time, the desire of men and of devils devel- 
(74) 



CHRIST FROM THE DIVINE, THE HUMAN, ETC. 75 

ops. If man lixed this programme, then he held in utter 
abeyance all the laws that have governed mind since God 
gave to man the power of thought. What could have sug- 
gested the idea of making this being a subject of types, 
promises, prophecies — arraying against him three worlds: 
heaven, earth, and hell ? His own Father ; his own brethren ; 
his own nation, and his own world ? Is there anything in all 
the histories, in all the fables, that has even a resemblance 
to a single feature of this wonderful statement of the case? 
The man who thinks it a human invention is really too easily 
gulled to make a decent Christian. 

We next inquire into the reasons why his death was thus 
eagerly and anxiously sought by all the parties named ; what 
the motives prompting each to act the part he or they took 
in this strange and terrible tragedy. Each moving from his 
own standpoint ; each influenced by different feelings, pur- 
poses and desires ; coming together at but one angle ; having 
nothing in common except the desire to accomplish his death, 
we first inquire into the desires and motives seeming to influ- 
ence the great God. As revealed to us by the apostles, God 
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
he through him might save the world. When God's image 
wandered off; when man became alienated in heart and 
rebellious in action ; when he covered himself with sin, as 
with a garment ; when he was dying, and was without God 
and without hope, one of two things had to be done; Help 
must come or God be dishonored, and man be forever lost. 
Creation must be blotted out and a failure admitted, or help 
must be laid upon one mighty and able to undo the incal- 
culable injury done. In all the vast resources within reach 
of divine infinite wisdom ; among all the powers, persons, 
agencies, instrumentalities, there could but one be found. 
The great book containing the destiny of the world is sealed, 



76 casket's book. 

and wKo can break the seals and read therefrom ? The Lion 
of the tribe of Judah prevailed ! Let us look for a moment 
at the dilemma : God had to deal with not what might have 
been, nor with what ought to have been, but with what was — 
with existing facts. 

Man is alienated ; that alienation must be destroyed. Man 
loves me not ; his love must be gained. Man loves sin ; the 
love of sin must be destroyed. Man's footsteps are wander- 
ing far away from his Father's house ; they must be turned 
back. But how? How win back lost love? Through the 
omnipotent power of love. How manifest or make known 
that love ? Through the strongest token or proof that can 
be found with God, angels, or men. And what is that highest 
and strongest? That God or man should give his son to die 
for his enemies, or his friends either. How destroy the love 
of sin? Through death for sin. Speak to a sinning world 
from the lips of a bleeding corpse, and tell them, this is 
what your sins have done ! Could any other means have 
been used? Would God have given up his only Son to die, 
the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God? 
Could any other have brought us to God? Those who so 
think, and regard it as matter of choice with God, as they 
are compelled to do by their foolish and wicked creeds, make 
God a more horrid monster than the poet makes vice. Give 
up your Son to save your world or give up your world ! 
Give him up, or draw the dark curtain of night and annihi- 
lation over and around 3'our image forever. Let the race be 
blotted out, or fill your new-made world with its teeming 
millions in all its ages. Let them enjoy the life they have, 
and furnish them the means, through the use of which they 
may enjoy an unending life of uninterrupted bliss in your 
presence forever and ever. One or the other must be 
done, or one of the chief attributes of God would have 



CHRIST FROM THE DIVINE, THE HUMAN, ETC. 77 

fled his throne forever — Justice. And so God decided, so 
acted ! 

His great fatherly-God love for us engendered the desire 
to bless and save, even at so great a sacrifice. Up to this 
time, God had worked alone through his own chosen agen- 
cies. But now the fullness of time had come ; the time for 
other actors to appear upon the stage and play their own 
chosen parts. God performs his part, and brings his Son 
into the world, born of a woman ; born under the law ; born 
in a manger, in Bethlehem of Judea. His birth was not 
unexpected. The Jews were looking for the advent of some 
extraordinary personage in fulfillment of their misunderstood 
prophecies. The Gentiles, through the teaching of the Jews 
concerning their, looked-for Shiloh, were on the tip-toe of 
expectation. So both Christian and infidel writers tell us. 
As soon as the sign of his birth is seen, another actor 
appears. How different in his feelings, motives, and pur- 
poses from that of the first. Instead of love, hate. Instead 
of philanthropy world-wide, intense selfishness, not desiring 
to benefit or bless any. His is the political standpoint. 
As soon as he sees the bright beaming light of the beau- 
tiful Bethlehem star, the fires of fierce hatred blaze up 
in his selfish and corrupt heart. Nothing but blood and 
death can extinguish them. Caesar's crown is in danger, 
and Caesar's throne may be shaken. But that is not what 
troubles him. Herod may have to vacate, unless he con- 
vinces his master that he is watchful, vigilant, and unscru- 
pulous in guarding his throne from threatened danger. So, 
with murder in his heart that ought to shock a devil, he adds 
if possible to its turpitude by throwing the mantle of sanc- 
tity around it, and deceiving wise and good men. He made 
them believe that he desired to be among the first of earth's 
great names to do homage to the new-born wonder. He 



78 casket's book. 

loaded them with the costliest offerings his wealth could 
purchase, telling them that when they found the young king, 
and reported, he would still a richer offering bring. These 
wise men went forth in good faith ; in faith laid their pre- 
cious gifts at the Prince's feet. Being warned of God in a 
dream, they never made their report. The child was sent into 
Egypt, beyond the reach of this monster in human form. 
His wrath then was so great that he sent out his minions and 
slew all the male children from two years old and under. 
Such was his desire for the death of Jesus that he filled the 
households with weeping over helpless infants slain. The 
Jews, his own people, began to move at a later day, after he 
entered upon his Father's work; after he began to teach 
and preach, since he taught not as the scribes, they 
moved from the ecclesiastical standpoint. 

Their hatred was, perhaps, even more bitter than that of 
the politicians. He denounced their revered traditions ; 
said they had made void the law of God by them ; pro- 
claimed woe upon the expositors of Mosaic law ; called their 
priesthood whited sepulchres without, within full of rotten- 
ness and dead men's bones ; ran contrasts between what 
was then law, and what would be Gospel ; began to talk of 
another vineyard, another sheepfold, clearly indicating, by 
parables and teachings without parables, that a great change 
was beginning to dawn ; that old things were about to pass 
away. He clearly taught it as he dare do, without endan- 
gering his whole plan ; clear enough for them to realize that 
Judaism was in danger. Hence their hatred and their 
united effort to put him down. At first they did not con- 
template violence. They resorted to all other means that a 
wily and unscrupulous priesthood could invent. Slander, 
misrepresentation, efforts to entrap, appeals to long-stand- 
ing prejudices of birth-place, and calling. They exclaimed, 



CHRIST FKOM THE DIVINE, THE HUMAN, ETC. 79 

*' Can any good come out of Nazereth?" " Is not this the 
son of Joseph, the carpenter ? " ' ' He eats with publicans and 
sinners." But why enumerate? This old sectarian pro- 
gramme has been gone over and over again, till it has 
become stale. All this failing, they thought, " Our altars, 
sacrifices, laws, priesthood, rites, and ceremonies must be 
saved ; our religion must be perpetuated ; and if this man 
throws himself in its way and attempts its overthrow, then 
he must die!" Here, for the present, we leave this party 
and attend to the third. 

The devil is really not as much to blame as the Jew re- 
ligionist, or the Gentile politician, nor was he so great a 
fool. While it is true that the success of Jesus would 
eventually destroy the religion of the one and the politics of 
the other, he would give them both what was infinitely better 
than either. But if the devil's kingdom were overturned, he 
would be left in a helpless condition. He moves from his 
own standpoint of hate, and moves to save his kingdom. 
He scorns the idea, if it entered his mind at all, of seeking 
aid. Like a skillful general, he sought his battle-field, his 
own time and place. His place, the wilderness ; his time, 
the end of a forty days' fast. He, like the other, did not 
at first seek the life of the Son of Man. If he could seduce 
him from the path of duty and get him in his power, as he 
did the first Adam ; if he could turn him aside from his 
mission of salvation ; get him to abandon God and serve 
the devil, then his empire would be freed from danger. 
When Christ was greatly anhungered, and enfeebled by un- 
broken fast, the devil made his cowardly assault. ' ' If thou 
be the Son of God, command that these stones be made 
bread. " It is written : ' ' Man shall not live by bread 
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
of God." The tempter is foiled, the temptation a failure! 



80 casket's book. 

The devil then taketh him up to the pinnacle of the tem- 
ple, and says: "If thou be the Son of God cast thyself 
down." And to strengthen the temptation, he underprops 
it with the Sacred Scriptures — misquoted — a favorite prac- 
tice of the devil.. The Savior says again: "It is written, 
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God," or, "Thou shalt 
not put thy God to the proof." Defeated again, and his 
chosen weapon turned against himself, he then taketh Jesus 
into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him the king- 
doms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto 
him : ' ' All these shall be thine if thou wilt fall down and 
worship me." This is by far the strongest of the three 
temptations offered, into the philosophy of which we enter 
not at present. And yet there is a compliment in the offer 
"that ought not to be passed without notice — a compli- 
ment worthy so great a personage as great as the prince 
of the power of the air to give. This is a conflict of no 
ordinary character, viewed from any standpoint. The 
actors are sovereigns — one of heaven, the other of earth 
and hell ; one ruling over good men and angels, the other 
over bad men and devils. The object for which they con- 
tend is also worthy the contending parties : It is for a world — 
of the living and of the dead. Shall the devil retain what is 
his, and what he has and holds, or shall all be wrested from 
his grasp ? He has a kingdom in this world ; he has the 
kingdom of the dead, and carries the keys that lock up* 
both body and soul. Shall his enemy — Christ — prevail 
against him, win his subjects to himself, and then gather 
their bodies out of their graves and the souls out of hades ? 
These are the issues involved. The devil owned the king- 
doms of the world, and their glory was his, because his 
subjects owned it, and he owned them. "Ye are the chil- 
dren of the devil," said the great Teacher. They were his 



CHRIST FROM THE DIVINE, THE HUMAN, ETC. 81 

by right of conquest and by voluntary servitude. God cre- 
ated Adam, and gave him the world as his heritage. The 
devil overcame him, and got possession of him and the 
world. His title is, therefore, in legal parlance, a bona fide 
and indisputable title. Crowned heads that 'sat upon thrones 
were but his minions to do his will. And they were all 
against the Lord and his Christ. It was, therefore, no idle 
boast of his when he made the offer, and I doubt not he 
would have complied with his promise. This brings us to the 
compliment paid to Christ, and a left-handed one to all his 
subjects. "All these will I give to thee if thou wilt fall 
down and worship me." — treating them as though they 
were so many cattle, sheep, or oxen, belonging to him. And 
so small was the estimate placed upon them that he would 
trade off their devotion, their services, themselves, and all 
they had for the allegiance, the worship of this single, 
lonely, and friendless man. 

That the blessed Lord felt the influence of this temptation 
none can doubt, for Paul says, " He was tempted in all 
points, as we are tempted." This is the strongest and 
most alluring form in which temptation could possibly pre- 
sent itself to the mind of man, or of devil, for you may 
rest assured that it was, in his estimation, the most potent 
within the grasp of his satanic mind. Having twice failed, 
and this being the last, and his all being at stake, we would 
expect him to park his heaviest artillery and make his last, 
grandest charge. That is just what he did, and he signally 
failed. "It is written. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy 
God, and Him only shalt thou serve." The devil then 
gave up the contest, and acknowledged defeat by leaving 
the field of conflict. Then, and not till then, aid super- 
natural came. Angels came and ministered unto him. As 
a man, relying upon human weapons and strength, he the 



82 casket's book. 

victory had gained. There now seems to be for a time a 
cessation of hostilities — a sort of armistice. The Gentiles 
could make no further demonstrations, for he was loyal to 
Caesar. The Jews could not yet find just cause for hostile 
action. Time passes ; light increases ; knowledge begins to 
run to and fro ; the priesthood begin to lose their hold upon 
the consciences of the people. The iron bands of old tradi- 
tions are being broken. Jewish wrath is kindled at last into 
a consuming flame. Their most cherished visions of future 
national glory, through this long looked for Shiloh, were 
proving visions indeed. Their delusive dreams were being 
rudely broken, both for national and religious perpetuity, 
and scattered to the four winds. And now the dark and 
damning thought of murder takes full possession of their 
minds and hearts, and had it not been for the fact that the 
power of life and death had passed from their hands, short 
work would have been made. "By our law," they said, 
"he ought to die, and what need have we of further wit- 
ness?" But they were compelled to form a partnership 
with their hated enemy, Rome ; and as empires are involved, 
the empires of life and of death, a political empire and an 
ecclesiastical empire, the Jewish kingdom. Gentile kingdom, 
and the devil's kingdom — the devil not feeling disposed to 
let other parties do this grand work for him when he had 
such vast and stupendous interests involved — desirous of 
sharing in the results that they thought would follow, must 
come in and play his part in the bloody tragedy. In order 
to do this he is compelled to lower his dignity and admit 
that which he never had admitted — that he could not suc- 
ceed alone. Another and awful letting down of dignity, 
from which I don't think he has recovered up to the present 
time, and never will, was the characters with whom the 
partnership had to be formed. Of all the despicable, hate- 



CHRIST FROM THE DIVINE, THE HUMAN, ETC 83 

ful, wicked, corrupt things in human form, that fills an 
honest heart with a loathing unutterable, is a corrupt priest 
and a corrupt politician, and these were the two classes with 
which the combination must be made. The tripartite treaty 
was agreed upon and the line of action marked out, the 
part of each assigned. The ecclesiastician was to arraign 
and charge, the politician was to try and condemn and exe- 
cute, the devil was to take his body dead and put it in the 
grave, lock up his soul in hades, with the souls of all of 
Adam's race, except Enoch and Elijah. He even had the 
body of Moses. 

After the partnership is entered into there is concert of 
action up to the desired end. Jesus is dead ; each has done 
his allotted part, and done it well ; malice is gratified ; hatred 
satisfied ; revenge glutted. There was a grand jubilee in 
Judaism. We have forever silenced the voice of him who 
denounced our priests, traditions, and customs. And in hell 
there was a grander and greater, because of the interests 
involved. Methinks the jubilee was equal to that sung by 
the immortal blind bard when Lucifer was hurled from the 
battlements of heaven down to hell. Milton says when his 
banner was upraised on a flag-staff larger than a Norwegian 
pine, and its dark folds unfurled over the sulphurous lake, 
from the expelled hosts, who underneath it stood, a shout 
went up so loud that it burst asunder the concave of hell, 
and frightened old Chaos, a thousand leagues beyond. But 
the rejoicings in both were short, only till the third day! 
There is a body missing from among the dead ; the sepulchre 
is empty ! The devil is as much surprised as Jew or Gentile. 
Worse than that for him, he visits hades and finds the soul 
has fled ! The prophecy is fulfilled, ' ' Thou wilt not suffer 
his soul to remain in hades, nor his body to see corruption." 
The devil then realized the fact that the very means he had 



84 casket's book. 

used to prevent the ruin of his empire were the ones that 
had overturned it. The death for which he had toiled so 
long and hard was the power by which his kingdom was to 
be destroyed, and through which his own most faithful sub- 
jects were to be drawn to God. To add to his deep morti- 
fication was the knowledge that he had been co-operating 
with tjrod ; that he was accomplishing the end for which God 
had sent his Son into the world. God could have accom- 
plished his object without the aid of Jew, Gentile, or devil. 
Christ could have died for the sins of the world, and nothing 
have been done by any of them. For all that they did, did 
not really take away his life. He laid it down and took it 
up again. But, as their corrupt hearts prompted them to 
lend their help, and as they had their own ends to reach, 
and assumed that they knew just how to do it, God per- 
mitted each and all of them to pursue his own course. And 
when man finds that his wisest plans are brought to nought ; 
that when he undertakes to defeat God, brings his highest 
wisdom into action, lays deep his plans, and laboriously 
carries them out, at last finds that he has signally failed ; 
finds that every move he made, every step he took, was 
working out the opposite of what he desired, and was really 
accomplishing the desires of the enemy. This ought to 
teach men, and devils too, not to fight against God ! The 
Jews learned and realized that the death of Christ, instead 
of perpetuating their nationality, would be the means of its 
utter annihilation ; instead of perpetuating their religion, it 
was the only means that could have destroyed it. When 
they laid their hands on him, to put him to death, they laid 
their hands on the pillars on which their two temples stood. 
They crumbled beneath their touch, and in ruins they lay, 
and lie yet, and so must ever be. The devil realized that 
the day would come when not a body could be found in a 



CHRIST FROM THE DIVINE, THE HUMAN, ETC. 85 

grave, and not a soul in hades ; that his own hand had over- 
turned his own empire of death. He fully measured the 
extent of damage done ; he as clearly saw as John on Patmos 
saw, a world of dead, small and great, stand before God ; 
he heard the sound of the resurrection trump as it mingled 
with the noise of the Apocalyptic thunders ; he heard the 
breaking in pieces of this old rock-ribbed world ; he heard 
the voice of him, who called worlds from nought, when he 
bids the dead come forth ; he saw them come ! From the 
coral reefs of the deep, deep sea, the unshrouded, the uncof- 
fined dead come ; from the bosom of the earth they come ! 
He heard the joyous shouts of ransomed hosts, redeemed 
by blood, as they sing in the everlasting city of the Great 
King, our Lord. 




OHAPTEE VII. 

CHRIST VIEWED AS THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 

T the threshold of our subject we meet with two 
'^ miracles : First. The very idea of sacrifice — from 
i\! whence came it? What human mind would ever 
have conceived the thought of setting right his 
wrongs by sacrifice ? What possible benefit could it be to 
himself to burn his tobacco, as some poor Indians do ; to 
pour out his oil or wine ; to offer his flour or his fruits ? 
What benefit to the being, real or imaginary, to whom they 
are sacrificed ? He surely has no use for them. He neither 
chews, smokes, eats, nor drinks. Reason would say, it is a 
senseless and wicked waste. 

The second miracle is, the sacrifice that takes away sin, is 
blood — spilled blood — from which our nature shrinks, unless 
perverted and hardened. The more refined, cultivated, and 
pure we become, the more revolting is the shed blood of 
man. That any human mind should originate the idea that 
it could get rid of sins by making an innocent lamb, kid, or 
bird bleed instead of man, is a mental and moral impossibility. 
That man would conceive the thought of selecting that which 
is the most repulsive to all the gentler and nobler elements 
of our nature, and make it the medium of approach to God, 
is absolutely too absurd to be discussed with patience. 
What would reason say? If you wish to drive man from 
me, pour blood on his path, that will fill him with horror ! 

We are brought nigh by the blood of Christ, says the Holy 
Book, and without the shedding of blood, there is no remis- 
(86) 



CHRIST VIEWED AS THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 87 

sion. Who declares this ? God! Where did the idea of sacri- 
fices originate ? In the mind of God. And then we prove there 
is a God, for the idea is in the world. Man could not create 
it, therefore it must have come from God. The doctrine of 
miracles immovably stands, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it. I am not unfamiliar with the argument 
used by infidelity denying this doctrine of miracles, and 
contending that it is human in origin. Its universality is 
urged in objection ; that bloody sacrifices existed farther 
back than travels the memory of man; that it is almost 
world-wide ; prevails in savage, as well as civilized religion. 
There are three ways of accounting for this fact: First. 
By the old dogma of innate ideas, long ago exploded, and 
no thinker left to honor its dead corpse. The second is, 
that man invented it, and it was communicated from him to 
others, and that on tradition's sea it floated — on tradition's 
waves it was borne to all ages and nations. This philosoph- 
ically accounts for its universality, but by no means proves 
the origin. Advocates of this theory strangely forget to 
tell us what man originated it, and when and where was it 
done, in what book was it written, and who wrote it. 

Is not this a stupendous draft upon the credulity of the 
world ? To believe such a proposition would be to attain to 
the truly miraculous, or to sink to idiocy. I think I have 
already shown that man could not originate the thought. 

Our Book gives you its origin and its author. It goes 
away back to the birth of time and gives us the beginning 
of all sacrifices. 

You may deny the inspiration of Moses, and contend that 
he only recorded the traditions of the Jews. Well, suppose 
this is true ; we follow back tradition's stream through the 
patriarchal age, and it brings us up against Abel's altar and 
his bleeding lamb ; to the rejection of Cain's offering, be- 



88 casket's book. 

cause there was no faith and no blood ; to all the sacrifices 
of time on to the days of Abraham. There were no differ- 
ences in the sacrifices of the people, but they so far departed 
from God that he had to separate Abraham from among 
them. He must cut Abraham off and hedge him in, and 
keep up through him and his seed a line of faithful wor- 
shipers ; must keep the idea of one living God from being 
lost forever, they not retaining God in their minds, for when 
they knew him, Paul tells us, that they glorified him not as 
God ; their foolish hearts became so darkened that they 
concluded that he was like beasts . and birds and creeping 
tilings. They engaged in the work of god-making, and as 
the stream could not rise above the fountain, the best gods 
they had were bad human passions deified. Their mental 
and moral status is measured by their conceptions as em- 
bodied in the forms of their gods. At first they were in the 
.forms of men, then the highest types of animals. Growing 
more blind and corrupt, the forms of animals, birds, fishes, 
and creeping things were exhausted. Then the inventive 
powers of genius is engaged in combining forms, and out of 
a variety of animals, constructed a monstrosity. This 
reached the climax — they could no farther go. They still 
retained the idea of sacrifices ; clear when they first parted 
from Abraham, but growing misty and confused when left 
to themselves. 

By looking at Butler's Ancient Geography and map, you 
will discover that those near the channels through which 
Jewish tradition flowed were less depraved and blind than 
those who wandered farther off. Their gods were not so 
vile, nor so numerous. Their gods, being a combination 
of human and animal passions, of course were a com- 
pound of all conceivable villainies, rascalities, and mean- 
ness. There is not an honest, just, wise, humane, or 



CHRIST VIEWED AS THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 89 

decent god in all mythology ; and among their goddesses 
they claim but one, and she is not above suspicion. Cruel, 
revengeful, unjust, vindictive, full of hatred and lust — 
owing to the character of their gods — their sacrifices be- 
came as much perverted as their gods. They were offered 
for a purpose dishonorable to their meanest god and dis- 
graceful to those who changed the design to suit the nature 
of their gods. They were, and are, offered to appease the 
wrath of their gods ; to get them to be gracious. I remark 
in passing, in this disgrace Rome and all Protestantism 
largely share. 

They had their scale of gods and their scale of sacrifices. 
The anger of an inferior god could be appeased with an in- 
ferior sacrifice. As we ascend the scale, the sacrifices must 
increase in value. When the great god, Moloch, is reached, 
nothing less than the warm, gushing blood of sweet children 
can turn his wrath. They made their children pass through 
the fire unto Moloch. What a ghastly, horrid, bloody 
picture. 

When the heathen philosophers were converted to Chris- 
tianity, they brought with them, as all converts do, some of 
their cherished dogmas. Among them, was their theory of 
sacrifices. Finding that Christ was sacrificed for sin, and 
applying their theory to this Gospel fact, they perverted and 
destroyed the design and power of the sacrifice. They ad- 
mitted the superior greatness and majesty of the God of 
Christianity over their gods ; admitted the superiority of 
Christ, as an offering, over their sacrifices — even their 
children. They reasoned as philosophers. From their prem- 
ises, as Moloch is so great his anger can not be appeased 
with anything less precious than human blood, God's anger 
can not be appeased even with this. Nothing less than the 
blood of his Son can turn aside his wrath — can influence 



90 caskey's book. 

him and cause him to be propitious. The sword of justice 
must be bathed in blood, and Christ became the sinners' 
substitute and received the blow. This horrid dogma was 
in harmony with the persecuting spirit of Rome — the man 
of sin and son of perdition — and was by Rome adopted and 
preached. Out of this grew their mass and transubstantia- 
tion, in which Roman Catholics can enjoy the exquisite 
pleasure of offering to their God the blood of his own Son 
every time they eat his flesh and drink his blood. Protest- 
antism drank deep of this cup of abomination, even to 
drunkenness. Out of this grew all those dogmas and theo- 
ries that blur the pages of creeds and commentaries, such as, 
"Paying the Debt Due from Us to Divine Justice," " Dying 
in Our Law, Room, and Stead," "Enabling God to be Just 
and the Justifier of the Believer," " Magnifying the Divine 
Law and Making it Honorable." Even the creed of the 
granddaughter of the mother of harlots, the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, has an article of faith on the design of 
this sacrifice as dishonorable to God, and as disgraceful to 
them, as anything Rome ever perpetrated in the way of 
doctrine making. Particularly so, since the Holy Spirit had 
left them an article on the subject, declaring that God was 
in Christ reconciling the world to himself. 

Methodism says, God was in Christ reconciling himself to 
the world ! The one presents God as a loving, sympathizing 
Father, the other, as a monster who had become so angry 
against man that nothing but blood could reconcile him. If 
their article is true, and if his death was a success, then the 
world is in no danger ; God is reconciled, the debt is paid, 
and man goes free. 

"When we show that the death of Christ was not to effect 
that for which they contend ; that it was not to pay this 
debt that we owed to divine justice ; that we have to pay 



CHRIST VIEWED AS THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 91 

the sad debt in our own persons, and that it would be unjust 
to collect it twice, they go to work and magnify the debt, 
and say that we died three deaths in Adam — temporal, 
spiritual, and eternal. They are bound to admit that we 
pay the physical part, and our Savior surely did not pay 
that. To escape this, they get up the other two. Did 
Christ die spiritually for us? Did he die an eternal death? 
If he cancels, by his death, our indebtedness, must he not 
die the same deaths that we die, whether one or one thou- 
sand? How can his physical death satisfy the claims of 
Justice, when she claims three deaths? She proposes to in- 
flict upon me three deaths, but agrees to cancel two out of 
the three. If Christ will die a physical death for me, and 
then I die for myself, we will play quits. And this is called 
satifying the claims of justice. They assume that God 
could not have pardoned sin without the shedding of blood ; 
that the power and right to pardon were withdrawn from 
him when man sinned, and that the death of Christ restored 
to him that power to pardon. Suppose it be true that he 
could not pardon without blood, how, in reason's name, 
could the death of an innocent man restore to him the power 
lost? This theory makes his death take effect on God in- 
stead of man. I say that God could have pardoned without 
sacrifice ; that he never lost for a moment the pardoning 
power ; that he could have pardoned and yet dishonored no 
law, except the law of justice ; that the death of his Son 
made him no more willing to pardon than he was without it ; 
that it had nothing to do in reconciling him, for he was 
never irreconciled. It had nothing to do in kindUng his love 
for us ; nothing in prompting him to be gracious to us ; 
nothing in satisfying the claims of divine justice ; nothing in 
appeasing his wrath ; in gratifying his revenge for violated 
law. 



92 casket's book. 

Then, you may ask, why did Christ die — where the neces- 
sity of his death? Let the Holy Spirit tell. He died to 
reconcile us to God ; by his blood we are brought nigh ; he 
died to crucify us to the world, and the world to us ; he died 
to make known the love of Grod for us. "If I be lifted up 
I will draw all men unto me. ' ' He died that our hearts 
might be sprinkled from an evil conscience ; he died to 
destroy the alienation, the enmity of the human heart ; he 
died to destroy in us the love of sin ; to kill us to sin and 
make us alive to God. 

Now, back to the question, Why did he not pardon with- 
out blood ? Look at that universally misunderstood text in 
Rom. iii : 26 : "To declare I say at this time his righteous- 
ness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that 
believeth in Jesus ! " On this I remark, that the controversy 
between Paul and the Jews was not in regard to the justice 
of God in pardoning them. This they never doubted. It 
was not in regard to them — the first hour laborers in the 
parable — but in regard to the Gentiles, the eleventh hour 
laborers that the injustice was plead. They claimed justi- 
fication through fleshly descent and works of law. Paul 
changes the basis of justification, and proves that it is by 
faith in Jesus. Being by faith, it is as just on the part of 
God to justify the Gentile as it is to justify them, the Jews. 
But, still the question presses. If God could have pardoned 
or justified without blood, why did he not do it? And how 
did the death of Christ justify him in pardoning the believer 
and no other? First. It would be unjust to thrust pardon 
on a sovereign, a free agent. Second. It would be unjust 
to pardon one who is in love with sin. Third. It would dis- 
honor God to thrust pardon upon a rebel who hated him and 
his government. This would be to make himself a party to 
sins, worse than compounding a felony ; would be offering a 



CHlfelST VIEWED AS THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 93 

bonus for sin. Fourth. Unjust, because the sinner would 
be injured thereby, being encouraged to continue in sin, 
because it would do him no good ; he would continue to sin 
and be pardoned ; and every time he is pardoned he is but 
encouraged to sin. Then, the first thing to be done is to 
create a desire for forgiveness ; to procure a death to sin, 
and a turning from sin ; destroy the love of sin ; to draw 
man away from sin, and draw him back to God ; bring his 
mind and heart to that point where pardon is joyfully ac- 
cepted. What power can accomplish these results? The 
omnipotent power of love — God's love. And how is that 
to be securely placed in human hearts? God must make 
known that love by the strongest proof. The strongest evi- 
dence of love that can be given is that a son should be given 
up to death. God so loved the world that he gave his only 
Son to die, the just for the unjust. 

What for ? For any of the reasons assigned in those abom- 
inable heathen, God-dishonoring Roman and Protestant the- 
ories ? No ! But that he might bring us to God. In view 
of these facts, the apostle could truly say, The Gospel is 
the power of God unto salvation. In it is all the moral 
power of God to win the love of hearts — through the death 
of Jesus. The love of God is thus poured into our hearts. 
We love God because he first loved us. These visionary 
theorists having transferred his death power from the heart 
of the sinner to the mind and feelings of God, it ceased to 
be the power of God to save, and became, in their parlance, 
a dead letter. Hence the necessity to find some other con- 
verting power, and then was hatched this orthodox myth of 
direct abstract spiritual influence. All converting power 
transferred from the Son, who sorrowed, sighed, suffered, 
groaned, bled, and died for us, to the Spirit who never felt 
a pang for human woes. 



94 casket's book 

But we must attend to the reasons why this pian so strange 
was adopted. I shall give but these, why sacrifices entered 
into and became such a prominent part in the divine plan. 
It was from necessity, not from choice — nothing else could 
reach man. The first reason is protective, God dare not 
allow guilt to stand in its nakedness in his presence without 
compromising his purity. Hence he commanded the wor- 
shiper to associate with himself the innocent, the sinless. 
So that the shadow of innocence might cast itself over 
guilt. Abel, the sinner, his lamb the sinless. Had Abel, 
the guilt}^ sinner, stood alone in the presence of God, it 
would be charged that his nature is not so much averse 
to sin as he would have us believe. The second grows out 
of the fact that there are two formative influences, by which' 
religious character is fashioned, two factors which create, 
build up, and perfect Christian character and life. These 
are the object or objects worshiped, and the sacrifices 
through which the worship is offered. The fondest and 
highest hope of all sincere worshipers is to become like 
their God, or gods, to assimilate in character to them. And 
it is these two influences operating on our minds, that 
molds us into the likeness of the object worshiped. 
When the Jew worshiper approached the altar with his lamb 
or kid, if in spirit and in truth he was thinking of God. They 
never could rise to a perfect religious manhood, when his 
thoughts went up to God, he was being assimilated to him, 
but his lamb or kid struggled in his arms, and his thoughts 
were called away from the contemplation of the higher na- 
ture of God down to a nature lower than his own. Paul 
saw this when he said the sacrifices under the law could 
never make the comer thereto perfect as pertaining to the con- 
science. It was in these sacrifices that the law was weak. 
Here the lines are clearly drawn between Heathenism, Juda- 



CHRIST VIEWED AS THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 95 

ism, and Christianity. And here the sin of idolatry looms 
up. In what does the sin consist ? In worshiping that which 
is inferior to man ; because man will assimilate to the thing 
worshiped. We assimilate to objects thought of and loved 
by us. The worshipers of animals become brutalized. 
Such is the force of this curious law, that an impressible 
wife, in process of time, if she loves her husband, becomes 
not only like him in her ways and movements, but really 
looks like him. It changes the expression, the personal ap- 
pearance. 

The crowning glory of the Christian religion consists more 
in its sacrifices than all else in it ; its power to lift man up 
into a higher spiritual plane. The sacrifice through which 
the Christian approaches and worships God is divine — God 
in his divine nature is far superior to man. The Jew wor- 
shiped the same God; but through a sacrifice lower than 
his own nature, hence its imperfection. It was the best 
though that could be done at that time and under that dis- 
pensation for reasons we can not now enter into. God 
recognized the influence of this law of assimilation. And in 
order that as little deleterious influence as possible might be 
felt by the worshiper, through his sacrifice, no ravenous 
beast or bird of prey, was ever on Jewish altar slain. No 
old stubborn, cross, vicious, or deformed animal ever bled 
for Jewish sins. But those that were without blemish. They 
were but the types of a perfect sacrifice, and therefore 
right that they should be the most perfect of their kind. 
Hence, they Vere all to be perfect, young, innocent. But, 
how immeasurably superior the sacrifice of the sinner, and 
the Christian now when he comes to God. He comes not 
alone ; it is not the guilty, crime-covered and sin-stained 
man walking into the presence of a sin-hating God ; by faith 
he associates with himself God's own appointed sacrifice. 



yb CASKET'S BOOK. 

With Jesus he stands before God ! The guilty and the in- 
nocent together stand. The guilt of the sinner is covered by 
the mantle of the sinless. By faith he lays his hand on his 
sacrifice, and pleads : " Oh, God, I come to thee for pardon — 
I come claiming the Lamb as my only and my precious offer- 
ing. Look upon the face of thine anointed, and then in 
mercy look on me.*' Both the God approached, worshiped, 
and adored ; and the glorious sacrifice through which it is 
done are all above man. In them dwells , the might of all 
purifying power. Thus, the two formative influences dwell 
in our hearts ; and we are all purified by the contact. Thus, 
the Christian becomes more God-like, more Christ-like, the 
oftener he appears before God through Christ. If this be not 
true, I see no reason why we should worship God at all.- 
Nor do I see why the worship of an idol would not do man as 
much good, as the worship of God. But, I must to the third 
and last reason. 

The death of Jesus was the only power that could 
turn man from sin; that could destroy the love of 
sin. I know this is true from the fact that God seized upon 
this power ; that had there been any other, God would have 
chosen that and spared his Son. If man could have been 
turned from sin and its service ; could have been brought 
back to God without it he would have mercy shown, and par- 
don granted without sacrifice at all ; certainly without the 
sacrifice of His loved Son. Prate not to me about satisfying 
the demands of infinite law, reigning in our law, room, and 
stead, appeasing the divine wrath. In the language of a 
D.D. who was drunk from deep libations from this heathen 
and Eomish cup of fornication : ' ' The beaming throne of an 
angry God was sprinkled o'er with blood divine and wrath 
was turned to love.*' Talk not to me of the sword of justice 
being stained with his blood that mine might not be spilled : 



CHRIST VIEWED AS THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 97 

of his paying my debt that I might go free ! You make God 
a monster more horrid than Moloch. He could be pro- 
pitiated with the children's blood. But justice, as the dogma 
says, demands the blood of a divine personage. Whab claims 
had justice on me? What did I owe her? My life. Did 
Jesus pay the debt? No, justice collects it from me. What 
did Jesus do? He admitted the claim ; He said to justice : 
" Draw your sword and cut him down, his life is forfeited. 
Lay his body in the grave and his soul in the state of the 
dead. In after ages, you can thrust your sword through my 
body — on me you have no claims — you can have one more 
body than was in the bond, I offer it voluntarily. It is mine 
to give. I ally man's nature to mine — and divinity to hu- 
manity. I will dwell among the dead ; I will undo your 
work ; I will come out of the grave ; ransom his body from 
death ; will enter Hades and bring out his soul. I will set 
both soul and body free and restore them to God.'* 

From the time man became a sinner up to the offering of 
this sacrifice, all the efforts of God were directed to the end 
of turning man from sin. He exhausted the resources of 
heaven, first, teaching in words, pointing out to man the na- 
ture of sin and its malignant power and influence. He used 
the language of famine and pestilence among the Jews to 
turn them away from sin. He used banishment and bondage 
and the sword. He used the language of blood and death. 
This, the design of sacrifices, from Abel down through the 
Patriarchal and Jewish ages. 

But all failed, one more, and only one can be made, one 
more lesson taught in blood and death. If this fails, then 
man is doomed — God can do no more. He sends his Son, 
and when the dark and fatal moment comes, when he bows 
his head in death, God utters his last denunciation against 
sin in the voice of death ; and the last lesson is written in 

7 



98 casket's book. 

characters of blood. By withdrawing his presence from his 
dying Son, God shows his abhorrence. It was this with- 
drawal of the Father's presence from him, that cast the 
dark shadow over his life ; this that caused the agony in the 
garden, when bathed in tears and blood, he cried to God to 
let the bitter cup pass ; not the cup of death ; this would 
degrade, and make a coward of the great Captain of our 
salvation. It is a shame that any one ever thought or 
wrote that death was the bitter cup. He knew the time 
drew near, when the sins of the whole of Adam's sinning 
race would be transferred to, or laid on him, and the Father 
would hide his face from him. Then the anguished cry is 
heard, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 
He bowed his head — his life went out. God says to us by 
this hiding his face in that moment of darkness : See what 
sin has done, read its nature — so hateful to my nature that 
I could not look upon the sinless, when sin was transferred 
to him. I now lay the dead body of my son, stained in 
blood, before you, step over it and you plunge into ruin. 
If it turns you back — causes you to appreciate its nature — 
causes you to dio to sin, you may ascend the holy hill of 
Zion — be lifted up to heaven and dwell in my presence for- 
ever, and partake of the glory, honor and riches of my 
Beloved Son ! 




CHAPTER VIII. 

THE POWER OF A THOUGHT. 

LL systems, divine and human, have in their center 
some vitalising, controlling power, which moves the 
S whole machinery, however vast and complicated it 
^^i may be. This is as true of the Christian system 
as of any other. It is our purpose, in this discourse, to 
present and partly develop the central idea ot our holy reli- 
gion, from which all its parts, either as causes or effects, 
derive their harmony, power and influence in molding char- 
acter, fashioning and controlling action, moving all the other 
agencies and instrumentalities that bring about the great 
and indescribably grand and glorious results — honor to God 
and salvation to man. This idea is expressed in a single 
sentence by the Apostle Paul : " Christ died for our sins." 
In it all the moral power of God is concentrated. In this 
idea the three attributes, through which all matter, all mind, 
and all morals were created and are governed, are brought 
to light. His wisdom, justice, and power were manifest in ten 
thousand ways — all his attributes, except that of love, the 
highest and most omnipotent of them all. But this attribute 
of infinite love could find only one voice through which it 
could be uttered in its fullness and perfection, and that was 
the voice of death — the death of his only begotten Son. 
But, before we attempt tx) measure this thought of God, the 
grandest ever originating, even in his infinite mind — the 
thought of giving Christ to die for our sins — perhaps it 

(99) 



100 . casket's book. 

woujd be well to select a few human thoughts, and measure, 
to some extent, the power that in them dwells, and out of 
these we can a sort of Jacob's ladder make, by the use of 
which we may climb up and get at least a shadowy glimpse 
of this divine thought. A philosopher in his garden sat in 
the cooling shade of evening's hour, his great mind on 
thoughts immortal bent. He saw an supple fall and an idea 
caught which revolutionized the world of science. This was 
but a human thought, caught in a single moment of fleeting 
time, by a single human mind, and yet, when you come to 
follow its pathway of light, wonder and awe profound follow 
it in its developments, grappling with the grand centripetal 
and centrifugal forces that hold worlds, and systems of 
worlds, in their orbits, that guide the sun in his course, the 
moon and stars in their wsij. One moment's suspension of 
their immeasurable influence, and world against world in 
wild confusion dash, until creation's mighty fabric fall, 
and utter ruin brood o'er its wreck. Can you meas- 
ure a tithe of its influence upon the mental and physical 
world? The mental expansion of the student's mind, as he 
dwells among the starry worlds of light, drinking in their 
diversified glories and beauties? Can you calculate the 
moral influence that steals over his mind and heart as, with 
the sweet singer of Israe-1, he exclaims, truly " The heavens 
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His 
handiwork ! " If such are the influences of a human thought, 
what mind can grasp — what imagination conceive — what 
angel tongue can tell the influence of this great God- thought? 
A somewhat dreamy boy, sitting by the winter fire, while 
his good mother was preparing their frugal evening's meal, 
and no doubt fretting as fond mothers will, when their loved 
ones do not come up to the standard of their fond dreams ; 
and Jimmy did not, he was rather given to day-dreaming, 



THE POWER OF A THOUGHT. 101 

reticent and abstracted in his moods. The tea kettle was 
singing its merry song in rather hissing, sputtering hot notes, 
nevertheless, it was music. Jimmy was watching, as the 
steam was seeking to escape its pent up imprisonment. He 
saw the lid rise and fall ; his boyish mind an idea caught, 
which has given to his name immortality this side the grave. 
Who can follow this thought, as like a mighty giant, it strides 
around the world — a majestic, conquering king ; laying its 
steel bars across States and continents ! Hitching its long 
line of cars to the iron horse, described by some writer of 
poetic fancy as a monster breathing smoke, with lungs of 
fire, encased in ribs of steel or iron ; bearing the products 
of the soil of different States to each other's door. Then 
commerce and manufactures, and people too, enabling us to 
pay a hasty call on neighbors, hundreds of miles away, and 
return before they have hardly missed us at home. It whirls 
the spindles, drives the looms, plies the shuttles that make 
the fabric to clothe the world. The pilot can now hold the 
bow of the magnificent steamship in the eye of the wind, and 
laugh at that which once wore out his patience. A dead 
calm. No fears now of rent and tattered sails, when the 
storm god grows angry and too fiercely breathes upon them. 
On he guides his great floating sea-house amidst calms and 
storms, to her destined port. He ought to be and is, a brute 
in human form, if he does not thank God for giving to some 
mind the power to give birth to this mighty and humane 
thought. 

This government of ours, like Christianity, has but one 
foundation corner-stone ; but one central, establishing idea. 
All the others are but developments of this. It is the only 
lif e-o:ivinor idea — national life — I mean : all else are but 
means of nursing and cherishing that life. If the sad hour 
ever come in which that one idea dies, the whole, vast 



102 casket's book. 

political fabric, which is our pride and glory, crumbles 
to dust, leaving not a wreck behind ; the oasis in the desert 
is covered with burning sand ; the last green leaf on the tree 
of liberty that our sainted fathers planted in American soil, 
the roots of which they watered with tears and blood, will 
wither and fall. No more will the oppressed of nations 
gather underneath the shade of her outspreading boughs, to 
look upon the green shimmering leaves, the bright and bloom- 
ing flowers, and taste the ripened fruit of liberty. Our 
nation's emblem that is proudly perched on the pinacle of 
the temple of our greatness, will droop its wings ; while some 
vandal, will pluck his quills, so that he no more can spread 
his strong broad pinions and soar up to his home among the 
stars ; desecrating hands have robbed him of his golden 
plumage, which oft he bathed in the sunlight of heaven. He 
will sit, denuded, shivering in the winter's breath of an ac- 
cursed despotism. Beware, ye monopolists and centraliza- 
tionists, that the eyes of your posterity look not upon this 
sad sight, for in their hearts they would bitterly curse your 
blind and maddened folly. But my love of country has 
caused me to wander off from the idea. It, like the all 
powerful and life imparting idea of Christianity, is expressed 
in a single sentence. The one is uttered by the greatest 
apostle of Christianity, the other, by the greatest apostle of 
liberty. "All men are born free and equal." The antagon- 
izing idea to this, is the divine right of kings or somewhat 
modified. The right of the few to rule the many ; and the 
right not being derived from the many. These opposite ideas 
met in the days of our revolutionary fathers. The idea in 
the declaration of independence got into their noble and 
manly hearts, and was deeply buried there ; to its support 
and maintenance they pledged their property, their lives and 
their sacred honor, and faithfully did they keep the pledge. 



THE POWER OF A THOUGHT. 103 

This idea warmed their hearts amidst the falling snows and 
howling, chilling wintry blasts when their footsteps were 
stained with blood ; this moved their arms and made them 
strong to wield the sword of freedom in the fight ; this gave 
them courage to stand unmoved amidst the cannon's roar 
and the rattle of musketry ; with unquailing eye they looked 
upon the flashing sword and gleaming bayonet; with un- 
blanched cheek they their bosoms bared to the leaden storm 
of death. It was this, and this alone, cheered their droop- 
ing spirits when dark clouds lowered over their cause, and 
the star of hope but dimly shone. For seven long weary, 
and to many, heart-breaking years, standing in sight of their 
burning houses — property all gone — fathers, husbands, 
brothers slain. Grand lives offered up in sacrifice at the 
altar of this one thought — " Man shall be free." Finally, 
\4ctory on their banner perched. Their sacred pledge was 
kept. The tree of liberty, deeply rooted in fertile soil, en- 
riched with patriot's blood. 

If this political empire of ours, in all its varied parts and 
powers, is the outgrowth, the developement of this single 
human thought. If all the blessings by us enjoyed ; if all 
the happiness the sons and daughters of freedom feel, from 
the realization of the thought " Free and Equal," I am a 
man, I call no man master, I acknowledge no superior, I 
bow the knee to none but God, I am the peer of any earth- 
born son. And when we think of the gladness that gushes 
into the heart of the weary and the burdened of other lands, 
the oppressed and down trodden poor of despotic power; 
whose future is as gloomy as the past and the crushing pres- 
ent ; who can look for nothing in the future, for self or chil- 
dren, but a life of incessant toil, that barely keeps soul and 
body from parting, when they reach our shore and inhale 
their first breath of freedom, and for the first time feel that 



104 casket's book. 

they are men and not things, that the same amount of labor 
done, which they were compelled to do to keep the wolf from 
their door, will bring them plenty, and after a while wealth, 
respectability, and influence among men, and that the way is 
open for them and theirs to enter the race for places of 
holior or profit, I say — if they do not feel a glow of grati- 
tude to Almighty God that to man he gave the power to gen- 
erate the thought, they are blind and heartless. If they 
would not peril life and honor to perpetuate this boon to na- 
tions yet unborn, they are cravens and don't deserve its 
blessings. If they do aught, by word or act, to dim its lus- 
ter, or weaken its power, then, they are traitors to God and 
man, and ought to be and will be thrice damned — damned 
socially, politically, and in perdition. This idea is but in 
its childhood yet, we will not allow our fancy to wander to 
oncoming ages, when it puts on its manhood strength, and 
goes forth to trample down tyrants, overturn thrones, break 
scepters, uproot despotisms grown hoary with age, when it 
shall sweep the circle of the earth and be embalmed in every 
heart, when a world shall be politically redeemed ; and shall, 
with voice so loud, proclaim that "All men are free and 
equal," that the echo shall sound above the stars. If such 
is but part of all this has done, and is destined to do, what 
must be the majesty, might, grandeur, influence, and glory 
of this best thought of God? When we think of making an 
humble effort to grasp and develop somewhat of its value, 
importance and divine power, the mind recoils upon itself, 
the imagination refuses an effort to ascend its heights, to 
measure its depths, or sweep around its circumference ! We 
claim no power to reach its heights or depths. But I may 
say some things that will draw the minds of other thinkers 
away from imaginary evanescent powers to this — the power 
of God to save us ! 



THE POWER OF A THOUGHT. 105 

An idea of its power maj be gathered from the fact that 
it required four thousand years of time to educate the world 
up to the point of appreciation, to this extent, at least, that 
men would not let it die, after it was announced — after 
Christ died for our sins. It employed agencies and instru- 
mentalities without number during these four thousand years 
to prepare its way ; it governed its author, God, in all the 
moves he made on the chess board of time, with reference to 
men or nations. The promise was made to the sorrowing 
woman soon after she transgressed the law, and fell from 
purity into sin and evil. Of course, she did not comprehend 
the promise, in its fullness, that her seed should bruise the 
serpent's head, yet, she knew there was good to her in it. 
"While she did not understand that her son would enter the 
cold grave, and bring her body out, destroying the penalty, 
the threat of which was then ringing in her ears: "Dust 
thou art and unto dust shalt thou return," that he would en- 
ter hades and redeem her imprisoned soul ; yet she under- 
stood enough to lift a portion of the crushing burden of sin 
from her troubled and penitent heart. Perhaps one tear less 
fell upon the blooming flowers beneath her feet, as, with 
bowed head, and shame-mantled cheek, and tear-bathed 
face, she leaned upon the strong man at her side, and was led 
forth with tottering step, bidding a long and last farewell 
to her Eden home. Her solemn march began to the grave. 
No word of reproach fell from the firm set lips of him 
who took his journey to death by her side. He had 
deliberately counted the cost, and decided in favor of 
death with her, rather than live without her. To let her 
go out into the wilderness world alone, no voice to 
utter words of sympathy in her ear, no hand to wipe 
away a falling tear, alone to meet the grim monster, death, 
was more than his manly, noble heart could bear. Who so 



106 casket's book. 

base as to censure him for forgetting his God, throwing away 
his immortality, and choosing to tread the thorny x^ath of 
life by her side, and by her side take the last, long sleep of 
death! Paul says Adam was not deceived. The woman 
was. I think, from all the facts and circumstances, that 
S3rmpathy for his doomed beautiful bride — his love for and 
devotion to her was more the cause of his sin than rebellion 
against God or opposition to his law. They were driven 
out, and the flaming sword of the cherubim, with its lurid 
light, followed their frightened footsteps as from the garden 
they fled. 

God's image has wandered off! Will its steps ever be 
turned back to the Father's house? This problem must be 
solved by God himself. His promise has been given and 
must be explained. "The seed of the woman shall bruise 
the serpent's head." This is the text; the commentary on 
it is four thousand years long. This is the promise, the 
explanation occupied the four thousand years, written in 
various languages, in which was employed a great number 
of scribes to do their part of the writing — to set their type 
and put to press, on the pages of time, the work they did. 
The writers and type-setters were God, Christ, the Holy 
Spirit, angels, men (good and bad), devils, life and death. 
The first writer of whom we learn was Abel, though not that 
Adam offered no sacrifices before Abel became a man. 
There are reasons why Moses makes no mention of it, and 
why he mentions that of Ab^l. The first recorded lesson 
was in burning wood, in flame and smoke, in consuming 
flesh and flowing blood. All down the ages altars rise, fire 
burns, smoke ascends, and victims bleed. Good men and 
bad men their lessons wrote, their types set up. Fifteen 
hundred years thus pass away, and the great, original setter 
of types begins his work on a larger and grander acale. His 



THE POWER OF A THOUGHT. 107 

people are carried into bondage, unfeeling task-masters 
placed over them. They are wholly powerless, and must 
wait for their God to raise up a deliverer, or in bondage 
forever remain. Four hundred years consumed in setting 
up a type of this world, groaning under the unfeeling and 
cruel task-master! Sin, whose power to enslave and in 
bondage to hold, can only be broken by the death of God's 
Son. A deliverer is raised up, another type is set by the 
Almighty hand. Moses is the type of Christ, as mediator, 
law-giver, and deliverer. A conflict begins between the 
newly raised up deliverer, and the king who held the reins 
of bondage; just as it was with his anti-type. The first 
Moses made to deliver his enslaved brethren, an opposition, 
ending only in death, began. The first move made by Christ 
was met by the tyrant sin, who held the world in abject 
slavery. Tha^ conflict ended first in the death of the de- 
liverer, but will end in the destruction of sin, so far as this 
world is concerned. In Egypt it ended in the death of their 
gods, the death of their first-born, and death of their king 
and flower of his army, and in the complete deliverance of 
God's people. Before leaving Egypt, God added another 
type. The paschal lamb was slain, the posts and top of the 
doors sprinkled with blood, so that when the death angel 
spread his dark wings over the households doomed to wail 
over the death of their first-born, when his eye saw the 
sprinkled blood, with strong wings he lifted himself up and 
passed harmlessly over. No arrow of death from his bow- 
string sped ; securely the household slept — saved by blood. 
The supper is hastily eaten, mixed as it was with bitter herbs, 
fit reminder of the bitterness of their years of bondage. 
They despoiled their enemies, and left in the darkness. 
They reach the Red Sea; another type is added. "They 
were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. ' ' 



108 casket's book. 

Let us pause at this point and show the complete accord 
between types and anti-types. They were in bondage ; so 
were we. They were delivered by Moses ; we, by Christ. 
They were saved by blood ; so are we. They ate the bitter 
herbs in that land of bondage ; we, the bitter bread of 
sin in our bondage to the world. They heard the voice of 
their deliverer ; we heard the voice of ours. They believed 
in Moses ; we in Christ. They followed him ; we follow 
Christ. By faith they were baptized into Moses in the cloud 
and in sea (and, parenthetically, that leaves out all that had 
no faith, babes, sheep, and cattle). For Paul, in comment- 
ing on this, says that by faith they passed through the sea, 
and while the infants, and cattle, and sheep passed through 
it, it was no baptism to them any more than if I were to ad- 
minister the anti-type with the person of an atheist. No 
faith, no baptism. As they by faith were baptized into, or, 
as others translate, unto Moses, so we are baptized into 
Christ on the other side the sea, in which their enemies are 
drowned, and they are forever separated from their bondage 
and foes. The song of deliverance fills the air and floats 
back o'er the sea. So we, when we obey Jesus in the anti- 
type, on the other side the sea, in which our foes are left, 
and that separates us from the world, we sing the joyous 
song, 

* How happy are they who their Savior obey." 

After getting religion was invented and pardon claimed on 
the wrong side of the sea, they shout glory and sing hallelu- 
jahs before they cross over, and after they cross, they sing : — 

" ' Tis a point I long to know, 

Oft it causes anxious thought, 
Do I love the Lord or no, 
Am I his or am I n-ot? " 



THE POWER OF A THOUGHT. 109 

I can't answer the question ! If you are, then, he has passed 
by an immense amount of religious stupidity, and had great 
compassion on your ignorance. For you have spoiled both 
type and anti-type, and made yourselves ridiculous in the 
estimation of all persons who can read either the one or the 
other. But, perha^DS the next stanza o"f this delectable dog- 
gerel, made to sing a false theology into men's hearts, will 
shed some light on the vexed question ; — 

" If I love, why am I thus ? 

Why this dull, this lifeless frame ? 
Hardly, sure can they be worse, 

Who have never heard his name." 

Well, sure I am, that I can't tell which is the worst off; 
the one who has never heard heard his name, or the one who 
can't tell whether he loves him or not ; or whether he be- 
longs to him or the devil. So, please, pardon me for not 
trying to decide the mooted case, and I will join with you 
in singing the first line of the next verse, that refers the 
whole matter — the whole vexed tangle to the Lord« 

"Lord, decide the doubtful case." 

In the meantime, while he is engaged in settling the compli- 
cated and doubtful question, and his answer returning to 
you, I leave the matter and resume the line of types, as 
nothing more can be done about it until his answer is given. 
I shall not even inquire how you expect to get it as this 
might complicate the case and give you further trouble, 
and I think you have enough on hand. 

This typical people reach Sinai and receive the law amidst 
the rolling thunder, flashing lightning surrounding this 
trembling and cloud-covered mountain. The law given, read 
and accepted ; mutual pledges are given and received between 



110 casket's book. 

the contracting parties. Another type is added. Aaron 
and his sons are separated and set apart to the priesthood. 
Forty years pass by and they cross the Jordan. Type of 
the river death. They enter Canaan. Type of heaven. 
Four hundred years completed the type of the world. Forty 
years in the wilderness wanderings finished the type of the 
Church. They entered the type by being baptized into it ; 
we, the anti-type, in the same way. They journeyed in the 
wilderness, we in the world : they crossed the Jordan into 
Canaan ; we, the Jordan of death into heaven. Kings are ap- 
pointed to rule under God as types of Christ ; altars still 
burning, blood still flowing, men and nations carrying out 
their own enterprises, following out their own devices as 
they think best, independent of him who sat in the heavens, 
and laughed them to scorn, and held them in derision. As 
the prophet tells us all this time, he is taking their best laid 
schemes and plans and weaving them into the accomplish- 
ment of his great end ; his own and his Son's glory, and the 
redemption of a world from death, through death. If any 
of the nations could not be used, he made them co-workers 
and their actions were used by him to further this enterprise 
on which his heart was set and for the accomplishment of 
which he had pledged himself to the banished and dead 
woman; and which was repeated both in promise and 
type ; and to David by the spirit of prophecy ; to Moses, 
and for which he was exhausting the resources of three 
worlds. If they became too aggressive and got between him 
and the fulfilment of his promise, as did the seven Canaan- 
itish nations when they were likely to draw his people into 
idolatry, he blotted them out and left the infidel to pump 
up crocodile tears o'er their untimely taking off. As he did 
the unmanagable king of Babylon whom he literally turned 
out to grass. The types of the sacrificial and scapegoats of 



THE POWER OF A THOUGHT. Ill 

the nation. The one typifying his death for sin ; the other the 
bearing away our sins, — fully commented on in my lecture 
on " Christ in Sacrifice." And last, prophetic types were 
set up. This completes the line of types, unless we enter 
into detail and enter into the tabernacle and true worship, 
as delivered to us by the apostle. But as greater minds than 
mine have explored this field, and greater pens described its 
beauties and perfections, I pass it by. Recapitulating the 
types not already grouped, Christ was to be king, priest, 
prophet, altar, sacrifice, the last of each and all. 

The antitype of all — into him the glory and honor of all 
official greatness was to be gathered and put to death in 
him, and to be bound with him, and never raisedup. He 
was the last and only king to rule over men by divine ap- 
pointment, the last prophet to teach, the last altar and sacri- 
fice. The last priest to appear in the presence of God and 
offer his own blood. All kings and priests and interces- 
sors that claim to rule, officiate, or intercede by divine 
appointment or right are impostors, and are trying to rob 
Christ of the glory that his Father was accumulating for 
him for four thousand years. It was the part of infinite 
wisdom to set up these official types. And now what can I 
say with regard to the event itself, that required all this 
preparation, all these agencies, instrumentalities, and influ- 
ences to educate his people for the reception of the event 
when, in the fullness of time, God would bring it to pass ? 
The time is fulfilled. Prophets have passed away, fires 
have gone out, or are growing dim, priesthood corrupted, 
kings are sleeping with their fathers. All these types are 
about to meet and blend in the great sacrifice. We pass, 
without comment, the manger, the garden, the cross, the 
cup, the grave! Prophecy is fulfilled, types and shadows 
disappear. The law is fulfilled, man is reconciled, God is 



112 casket's book. 

glorified, the world redeemed. He went into the grave to 
bring their bodies out; into hades, to bring out their 
spirits ; conquered death, and opens the gates of heaven ; 
brings life and immortality to light ; robbed death of its 
sting, the grave of its victory; ascended upon high and 
gave gifts to men ; inspired a hope in us as immortal as 
himself, that we, too, with a shout, should pass the gates of 
death and find a home with God. Standing by his cross 
and following with the eye of faith the waves of light, as 
they backward roll over the dtm and misty past of four 
thousand years, we are enabled to understand all that the 
actors did not. We understand what the prophets in vain 
tried to comprehend when they foretold the coming of Christ, 
and the glory revealed to us, not to them, we understand 
that which angels desired to look into. The floods of light 
pour over and clearly show to us the meaning of the altars 
and victims that on them bled ; reveals to us the meaning 
of all the types and shadows, which, by them, was not un- 
derstood ; reveals to us the dealings of God with men and 
nations ; reveals heaven and the beautiful mansions prepared 
for us. But, best of all, his death makes his own and his 
Father's love for us known, and when sickness, pain and 
death tell me God cares not for you, I just whisper, Jesus 
died ! "When by his cross I stand and look at the rays of 
light as they chase the darkness of years away, and on and 
up, till they meet descending rays from the throne of God, 
my tongue falters — I am unequal to the task ! 



CHAPTER IX. 

RESURRECTION. 

** How are the dead raised up and with what body do they come? 
Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." 
I. Cor. XV : 35, 36. 

fF Atheism be true, there may perehance be a resurrection 
of these bodies. If Deism be true there must be. If 
Christianity be true there shall be ! If chance has done 
^ one half the wonderful things, Atheism gives her credit for 
doing, why should it be thought a wonderful thing that chance 
should raise the dead ? If chance this world has made with 
all its suns and moons and stars, and all the other worlds ; 
if chance has raised high those towering mountains on which 
the clouds rests ; if the hand of chance has spread the green 
carpeted and flower bedecked valleys ; furrowed out the beds 
of the surging seas, rushing rivers, singing brooks and gurg- 
ling rills; if the hand of chance fashioned these curious'^ 
wrought frames of ours on which when the psalmist looked 
and exclaimed, "How fearfully am I made, O God." If 
chance is the getter up of these ever thinking active minds 
of ours by which we tread untrodden paths of thought ; if 
chance to us has given the power to love, to hope, to fear, to 
joy and sorrow ; if she has kindled those holy aspirations 
after a higher life, and interwoven into the warp and woof 
of our nature a desire stronger than death for an endless 
life; which desire is universal, and is never struggled 

8 (113) 



114 casket's book. 

against until man so corrupts himself by sin, that to avoid 
accountability, he chooses annihilation. If chance to man 
gave the life he now lives, and takes that life away and lays 
his once strong body dead in the dust, why may she not re- 
store the life she gave and took away? If chance should 
take it into her sapient head to fix up just such a bright and 
beautiful world as the hated Bible talks about, and just such 
a dark and drear and dismal world as the wicked are threat- 
ened with, and some day run a line of demarkation clearly 
drawn, and dig a gulf both deep and wide, placing all the 
pure, the good and true on one side where they can be 
happy forever; and all the wicked on the other, where 
they can wallow in their normal filth and fatten on their own 
sins, and no longer mar the peace and joy of others. If she 
has mixed us all pell mell together, the good and bad, the 
pure and impure, the honest man and the thief, the chaste 
and the debauchee, and makes us live and die together, I ask 
the honest Atheist (if there be one) if he don't really think 
that his god ought to get tired of the bungling job and set 
matters in better shape ? Now, I say that if chance has done 
all those things, and thousands more just as curious and 
wonderful — then if an Atheist is waked up from the dead 
and finds himself in hell ; if he feels at all surprised, I would 
pronounce him even a bigger fool than Paul said he was for 
denying the resurrection of the dead. The most that he 
dare say without incurring the charge of Paul, is that it is 
doubtful ; may or may not be. If Deism be true, there must 
be a resurrection since Deism believes in one God, and no 
more, as expressed by the great apostle of American infidel- 
ity, in his noted miscalled "Age of Reason.'* Deists reject 
the God of the Bible and the Bible, because they say it 
slanders the true God. So they have found out (I don't 
know when, or how, or by whom) a much better God than 



KESUKRECTION. 115 

Moses and the prophets reveal. The greater then the neces- 
sity for a resurrection of these bodies. These bodies have 
been terribly wronged, fearfully outraged ; some other hand 
struck the blow — ours did not. Why do these bodies grow 
old and decrepit ? Why suffer pain ? Why be dishonored 
by death? Reader, have you ever seriously thought of the 
deep dishonor death inflicts ? Sown in weakness, sown in 
mortality, sown in corruption. Infidel, that beautiful form 
you gathered to your throbbing heart, where is it now? 
Where the love-lit eyes that looked into yours ? Where the 
lips that gladly smiled a welcome ? Where the blooming 
cheeks that took on a richer hue when your step was heard ? 
Where the beautiful, delicate hand you clasped in yours when 
at the altar you stood and made her your bride ? After 
death has done his work, in your hand you hold a few skele- 
ton bones. The flesh and once pearly skin of the rose-tinted 
cheek is now a mass of decomposing matter offensive to 
sight. Two eyeless sockets is all that is left after the light 
of the orbs are put out. Lips have decayed and fallen from 
uncovered teeth ; the whole form which to you was covered 
with a mantle of beauty, is now a thing of loathing and dread. 
Then in anguish of heart we exclaim with Job : " Oh, give me 
a place to bury my dead out of my sight!" Are these 
wrongs never to be righted? This dark and deep dishonor 
never be removed ; this stain never to be effaced ? Is dust to 
be man's dwelling forever ? If so, insult me not by prating 
in my ears the justice of your fancied God. Accept the 
resurrection or turn Atheist and say " there is no God." If 
the wrongs thus inflicted are ever to be righted, it can only be 
done by the resurrection of these bodies. My book teaches 
me that wrongs not self-inflicted shall be set right, that for 
all injuries inflicted by others, full compensation shall be made 
whether on body, mind, or heart. Less than this, simple 



116 casket's book. 

justice could not demand, and so if Deism be true there must 
be a resurrection of these bodies. Having now closed the 
argument from the Deistic standpoint, I must devote in pass- 
ing, attention to the efforts of the Atheists and Deists to be- 
little the Bible and drive the recognition of God out of his 
world. 

Much stress is laid on the charge of murder in waging 
war of subjugation against the poor, innocent Amalekites. 
If Col. Ingersoll had used the case before an honest jury a 
somewhat curious spectacle would have been seen ; the ac- 
cused dangling at one end of the rope and the prosecuting 
counsel at the other. For if the record in the war office be 
true, he did the very same thing. I don't know that he slew 
any Agags. If he did not it was his cowardice and not his 
conscience that prevented, for that was what he was made a 
colonel to do ; I do not know that he killed any nursing 
babes ; but I do know it would have been much better for 
them at least, if he had, instead of turning them out to beg- 
gary, want, and woe, to grow up in ignorance and its at- 
tendant vices. But I will deal tenderly with him, and give 
him credit for abandoning the war of subjugation on con- 
scientious scruples, rather than fix the crime of murder on 
himself, and be deprived the exquisite pleasure of prosecu- 
ting Moses ; and not charge him as some have done with 
leaving the field of fight, while yet the battle raged, because 
all hope of military glory had faded away, when he was 
captured by an unarmed, sixteen year old boy. He, with all 
the infidel crew are terribly distressed over the slaughter 
of the Amalekites, and the partial destruction of the 
other Canaanitish nations. I address myself now to the 
Deist who has been pumping up showers of tears to shed 
o'er other woes. They accuse God of cruelty, injustice, and 
wrong ; and in every way already quoted, of murder. They 



RESURRECTION. 117 

seem to forget his right to take the life of nations, or worlds. 
They assume that wrong was done to these nations. How 
do they know, but that their utter destruction was the very 
best thing that could be done for them ? Do they know any- 
thing of their moral status ? That they were hopelessly ir- 
ref ormable ? That the whole nation was morally gangrened ? 
That their smallest crimes perpetrated in the face of day, 
can not be named, in hearing of ears polite. They were ut- 
terly brutalized. As well have stood on the sulphur-smoked 
walls of the Catholic hell, and amidst its thunder- shocked 
and lightening-scathed foundations preached to the devils 
any doctrine pure, holy and good, with a hope that they 
would hear and reform. 

God had exhausted his resources on them long be- 
fore. They did not go on from bad to worse, simply 
because there was no worse to which they could go ! Sup- 
pose he did cut short the old man's breath, he had a few less 
sins to suffer for; the man in middle life, much fewer; the 
young man fewer still; and the innocent babe, o'er which 
they almost weep, none at all. Had the babe grown to 
man's estate, with its surroundings, like father and mother, 
it would have been a brute except in form. I could give rea- 
sons as high as heaven, and strong as death, why God did 
it, were I defending Him for what he did ; but I simply am 
defending him against their slanderous charge on which they 
arraign, try, and condemn the Bible account of the 
dealings of God with these nations, without first prov- 
ing that a wrong was done. No man's life is worth 
prolonging after he becomes brutalized, and all hope of 
reformation is gone. It is then an act of mercy for 
God to cut him off. If one-half the world were killed, 
it might be best for them and best for all; but 
that is a question which belongs to God. Now to the Deists 



118 casket's book. 

comes the strangest inconsistency and most pitiful farce 
ever played in reason's realm. They have wept so many 
tears over the babes of Canaan killed by our God, they have 
no tears to shed for babes killed every hour by their imag- 
ined God. They spend so much time in abusing our God 
for slaughters past, that no time is left in which to abuse 
their own God for slaughters past and present, including 
their own wives and babes. We assign reasons why our 
God kills, they give none. If there be a sight on earth over 
which angels might weep, if tears were ever shed in heaven, 
it would be to hear the poor blab-mouth Deist abusing one 
God for killing a few corrupt and worthless nations and 
glorifying another for killing a world. I am now done with 
deistic vagaries and inconsistencies, and return to the in- 
quiries propounded in the text quoted. Our first inquiry is, 
by whom asked, and why? From whom came the objections 
to this central and most sublime truth of our holy religion ? 
This truth was opposed for reasons similar to those which 
have caused all truths to be opposed, whether religious, sci- 
entific, political, or in any department of human thought. 
Not, as theologians tell us, that it is because the heart of 
man is corrupt, and that he naturally loves a lie more than 
truth, but because he has a falsehood in his mind, on the 
particular subject, before the truth comes to him. True, 
there is a broad streak of mean and contemptible nature in 
some men, who feel deeply aggrieved and personally insulted 
if any one except themselves discovers the truth. There 
has been the same opposition to truths where the heart was 
not involved, as where it was. The opposition to this truth 
preached by the great apostle to the Gentile world grew 
out of the reason named. Parties had falsehoods in their 
minds which must be renounced, or this must be rejected, 
for both could not dwell together in the same mind. We 



RESURRECTION. 119 

notice but three prominent parties who threw their influence 
against the doctrine of the resurrection. It came in con- 
tact with their creeds and overturned their dogmas. The 
Gnostic creed taught that all sin dwelt in the flesh ; that 
mind was an emanation from God, and was sinless like the 
source from which it came ; that when the body died, its 
sins died with it ; that the mind returned to God and was 
re-absorbed in him — personality lost, individuality lost — 
all is God again. 

When Paul announced the resurrection of the body, they 
reasoned as philosophers, — if the body comes up, then its 
sins will come with it ; and instead of their being buried in 
the dust we must meet them in the flooding light of an eter- 
nal day. They will all be known, and those that were for- 
gotten by ourselves shall come up and be by us remembered. 
Hence they threw themselves against it. This is the origin 
of modern universalism, revamped and half-soled by Hosea 
Ballon and others in a theological journeyman work-shop. 
The Greeks underrated the body, with them, it was but a 
cumbrous house of clay, a tenement in which a deathless 
spirit dwelt ; a casket in which a priceless jewel sparkled, 
and when the hammer of death the casket broke, the gem 
with increased luster would shine in a far off beautiful world. 
There is a spice of Grecian lore pervading all the churches 
yet, which underrates the value of the body ; an idealistic sort 
of religion called heartfelt, perhaps because it dwells nowhere 
else and can not be seen. It has no control over the body ; 
etherial, sublimated, mythical — much better suited to 
Grecian elysian fields than to this working and wanting 
world of ours. A revival of religion for the body is sadly 
needed just now. There are of course distinctions and dif- 
ferences between soul and body, but not in that direction. 
The differences lie not in regard to value, for it is not given 



120 casket's book. 

to man to know which of God is loved the best. The body- 
is to be made as immortal as the soul ; beautified,, spiritual- 
ized like unto the body of his Son. The poet expressed the 
scriptural thought when he sang : — 

** God my Redeemer lives, and ever from the skies 
Looks down and watches all my dust, till he shall bid it rise ; 
Arrayed ia glorious grace shall these vile bodies shiue. 
And every form and every face be heavenly and divine." 

They rejected the doctrine to get rid of their bodies, rather 
than admit that their mythology was false in regard to the 
value of the body. With what enduring tenacity men will 
hold on to theories whether there is really any value in them 
or not! All who embraced the metempsychosian theory, 
the transmigration of spirits, were if possible in a worse con- 
dition than Gnostic or Greek. The theory of these old 
D.D.'s was, that the souls of the dead entered into the 
bodies of the living. According to their theory, I commend 
their wisdom in the disposition they made of the souls of the 
dead ; they graded the world of animals and of men, and 
disposed of the souls according to quality. The soul of the 
drunkard they sent into the hog ; the souls of those now 
called sharp financiers were sent into the serpent, as the ser- 
pent was with them, the emblem of cunning. 

After the soul was sufficiently punished and the animal 
died, if the soul was improved by what it suffered, it was 
then put on the ascending scale, and gradually worked its 
way up. If during purgational punishments it became pure, 
then it went into the body of an infant. For said those old 
doctors of a sick divinity, infants are pure. All I have to 
say in passing is that these old doctors had a great deal more 
sense and scriptural truth on this subject than their modern 
successors. In the Catholic purgatory and universal restor- 



RESURRECTION. 121 

ationism all at last are purified by what they suffer, and if 
the suffering is the same, I confess — I have no choice — I 
would as leave take mine in the mangy pup of Metempsy- 
chosis as in the purgatory of the pope ; in the hog of trans- 
migration as in the hell of restorationism. It requires no 
philosophic eye to see the trouble Metempsychosis was in ; 
the animal bodies are not raised. My book reads of spirits 
crying out for their bodies. One spirit perhaps, has dwelt 
in a thousand human bodies. Thus the law of supply and 
demand drove them to a rejection of Paul's preaching or an 
abandonment of their theory. Those are doubtles the par- 
ties from whom the questions came, "How are the dead 
raised up, and with what body do they come?" "Thou 
fool," says the apostle. There are certain words used by 
prophets and apostles that are fast becoming obsolete. The 
words drunkard, liar, thief, extortioner, fool. We in mod- 
ern times have made so many pretty technicalities, that sin 
is covered up ; we throw so much of the beauty of phraseol- 
ogy around the sin, that the man who commits it is more apt 
to fall in love with it than to fall out with it. I do not be- 
lieve with the immortal Shakespeare that " a rose will smell 
as sweet by any other name." Look at some of these mod- 
ern names for ancient sins : if a man be drunk we say he is 
somewhat inebriated, or slightly intoxicated ! 

But we must now attend to the question, and the apostolic 
argument in favor of the resurrection. Although he calls 
them fools, still he condescends to reason with them and con- 
vince them of their folly ; at least to make an effort, worthy 
of himself and the great subject he has in hand. Come 
now, you wise men who deny the truth of what I preach, and 
won't believe unless you understand the how and what. 
We take this grain of wheat ; look at its color, brown — shape, 
oval — substance, hard. Is there any life in the grain? 



122 casket's book. 

Boasting science would answer, no ! "We drop it in the soil. 
' * That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that 
shall be, but bare grain of wheat or some other grain ; but 
God giveth it a body as it has pleased him/' Do 
you think you would ever see it again if it were the first 
that was ever sown? Winter's snows deeply pile their white 
flakes upon it; winter's ice freezes over it, ten feet deep 
it lies, while winter's chilling blasts, sweep o'er its planted 
place. After awhile spring time comes, birds begin to sing, 
and buds to swell, sun beams kiss the frozen bosom of 
mother earth, and the vegetable resurrection morn dawns. 
We will now look for our little long lost grain, but lo ! it is 
not. And yet, what is this ? A something different in size 
and color, in shape, in form, and substance. It is the 
grain ; God has given it a body as it hath pleased him ; the 
body again has changed, a slender stock shoots up and from 
each side there grows a blade that rustles in the sighing 
breeze. What power is causing these wondrous changes 
to pass over it? From glory to glory the changes go on, 
until autumn winds breathe over the fields of waving grain. 
Then to the harvest sickle it bows its well filled head of ripened 
grain, some sixty, and some a hundredfold. What power 
passed the shriveled grain through those various changes, 
giving it day by day a body as it pleased him, and to ever}^ 
seed its own body ? Can not the same power change our 
bodies from death to life, from mortal, from weakness, from 
dishonor, to immortal power and glory? " Why then should 
it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the 
dead? There is one glory of the sun, another of the moon, 
and another of the stars. One star differeth from another 
star in glory ; so also is the resurrection of the dead. " Now 
plant your scientific ladder on this revolving earth, and lean 
the top against the moon, and while there look out upon the 



KESURRECTION. 123 

golden god of day, as from his eastern couch he comes 
whirling his fiery chariot athwart the heavens, chasing dark- 
ness and cold from the bosom of night ; look upon the moon, 
pale and silvery queen of night, as she majestically rides the 
heavens, gathering the hosts of shining stars in her train, as 
the mother gathers her children when she goes to rest. 
Graze, as in rapture well you may, upon their variegated and 
diversified glories, and then ask, what power it is that gives 
to the sun his golden beams, the moon her pale rays, and to 
the stars their twinkling lights to tell their maker's praise? 
From the Christian standpoint there is assurance that the 
dead shall be raised ; the trumpet shall sound ; the sea shall 
moan ; the earth shall be moved ; the stars from heaven 
shall fall ; the sun himself shall rise, stagger, and fall to rise 
no more ! The great white throne from God out of heaven 
shall descend; the new Jerusalem with Christ shall come 
down ; earth, and sea, and death, and hell shall give up the 
dead that is in them. From the coral reefs of the deep, 
deep sea, the unshrouded, the uncoffined dead shall come 
forth ! This old rocked-ribbed earth of ours shall in pieces be 
broken ; the seven thuiiders shall utter their voices. Then, 
amidst all the sounding trump, the moaning sea, the break- 
ing rocks, the bursting tombs, the darkening sun, and falling 
stars, the judgment throne shall appear, and all the dead 
both small and great shall stand before it and be judged by 
him that sits upon it. The angel of doom has announced 
that time shall be no more ; the drama of human life has 
closed; the curtain falls — God is glorified, Jesus honored, 
the righteous saved, and sinners lost. Dead bodies brought 
to life immortal and to glory, and the saying brought to 
pass, that death is swallowed up in victory. " O death, 
where is now thy sting? And where thy victory boasting 
grave ? " 



CHAPTEE X. 

RESURRECTION, No. 2 ; OR, INFIDELITY MET ON 
ITS OWN CHOSEN GROUND. 

'N this lecture we shall undertake to sustain the truth of 
miracles, and thereby overturn the whole fabric of infi- 
delity. If miracles be sustained, all is safe ; if not, all 
is lost! With this, and this alone, the Bible stands 
or falls. 

Fortunately for the cause of truth, religious and iniidel 
philosophers do not disagree as to what a miracle is, and 
how worked, if ever wrought at all. I therefore give the 
accepted definition. Events occurring under the influence 
of permanent and uniform laws are not miraculous. If an 
object can be reached, an end attained, a purpose served, 
through fixed, permanent laws, then a miracle would be 
supererogation. When an end can be reached through 
the ordinary, no use for the extraordinary ; when by the 
natural, there is no use for the supernatural 

If miracles are ever wrought at all, they are wrought by 
the suspension of the uniform laws of nature. A power super- 
v^enes above all law, suspending or reversing fheir uniform 
action, and producing a result the opposite to what would 
have been brought about in the regular course of law. As 
we have three worlds, mental, moral, and physical, there 
may be three classes of miracles. 

I now state what would undeniably be a physical miracle : 
If the great father of waters, the Mississippi, were to cease 
(124) 



INFIDELITY MET ON ITS OWN CHOSEN GROUND. 125 

rolling his muddy billows down into the bosom of the gulf, 
and roll them back up to the mountains, this would be a 
miracle and contrary to the hydrostatic law and the law of 
gravitation. If the sun to-morrow morning were to rise in 
the west instead of the east, that would be a miracle, and one 
which would caus"e more praying to be done at one time 
than in the world's wicked history since the flood. Should 
not be surprised if it should bring IngersoU and the saloon- 
keepers to their knees. 

So much for physical miracles. 

The mental and moral worlds are as much under never- 
varying law as the material world. Every thought that 
flashes through and from the mind is but an effect of the 
law that has governed all mind since God to Adam gave the 
power to think. Every feeling that has ever stirred man's 
emotional or moral nature is but the result of uniform law. 
Every joy that floods the heart and brightens the eye, every 
feeling of sorrow or anger or hate that ever darkened the 
human face, every unfolding blossom of hope that made 
light and beautiful the pathway of man, traveling to his 
home in the cold, cold grave; every black, ugly bloom of 
fear and doubt and despair, all are but the effects produced 
by eternal law, uniform as the laws that control the material 
universe. 

If the religious world would but learn this great truth, 
which they ought to have done a thousand years gone by, 
we would have no infidels now in Christian lands, and there 
would be no necessity for this lecture. 

The truth is, God governs by law. Born by law, live by 
law, die by law, made Christians by law, and live Christian 
lives by law — law as uniform as that governing the sun or 
guiding the stars. One of the causes of infidelity is that 
the systems of theology have specialized all that pertains to 



126 casket's book. 

Christianity. A special time, a special person, a special 
place, special agencies set to work by special means, all re- 
sult in a special failure, except a large crop of special 
infidelity. 

To return to mental and moral miracles : For an idea to 
be imparted to mind, independently of, and in contravention 
of mind law, would be a miracle. For a feeling to be com- 
municated to a human heart, independently of regular law, 
would be a moral miracle. 

"With these undisputed definitions given, these undenied 
facts stated, we are ready to take another step and show the 
necessity of miracles. Assuming the truth of the Bible 
statement for the present, that man fell and must be lifted 
up again ; that he was dead and must be made alive ; was 
lost and must be found. This being true, no law could 
reach his case ; no ordinary means could possibly come to 
his relief. Regeneration, purification, redemption, salvation 
can not be accomplished by any law then, or now existing. 
The natural is powerless, the supernatural must come in, 
else all is lost, and forever lost. No law known to men or 
angels can reach the case. 

If the infidel admits that man has sinned, then he must 
show how he could be pardoned through some of those 
known laws or admit miraculous intervention, that is, if 
there be any pardon or escape at all. Will he, can he deny 
that man violates all laws ? He breaks moral law, can moral 
law repair the damage done his moral nature? But suppose 
he determines to keep the law and break it no more, what is 
to be done with the past? Will you vest law with pardoning 
power ? We repeat, that the necessity of the case demanded 
the interposition of miraculous agencies and means, over 
and above and independent of all law. 

The advent of a miraculous personage, who would not be 



INFIDELITY MET ON ITS OWN CHOSEN GROUND. 127 

born in accordance with the law of birth, nor Hve in har- 
mony with the usual law of life, nor die in conformity to the 
law of death, was a necessity. He being a miraculous per- 
son, we would expect him to use miraculous means to 
accomplish his ends. And now we are read;y to grapple 
with the master mind of the infidel world, and with what is 
justly regarded as the most masterly argument ever penned 
against the doctrine of miracles. I allude to the celebrated 
argument of the great English historian, Hume. 

That Christ was born, lived, and was crucified and buried 
in the days of the Caesars none deny, and this narrows the 
controversy down to a single issue. Did he rise from the 
dead? The Christian answers, yes! the Infidel, no! 

On this we make the fight for truth, feeling deeply assured 
that victory will hover over the place where he slept, and that 
the risen Star of Bethlehem shall forever shine through the 
midnight darkness hovering over the grave. 

Mr. Hume says that miracles are at war with the experi- 
ence of the whole world. He was a bold man when he 
made that utterance! How does he know? Had he lived 
all along down the ages ? Had he been at all times, and in 
all places ? Had he conversed with all men of all ages and 
nations, and had they reported to him, "No miracle!" 
Had they done so, it certainly requires the credulity of an 
infidel to believe that they all told the truth. God alone can 
afford to make such an assertion without jeopardizing his 
veracity. This is not Hume's argument^ it is merely his 
assertion. I assert that miracles do not war with the expe- 
rience of the whole world, and that makes us even! A be- 
coming modesty might suggest to both of us to confine our 
experience to ourselves. Then we would agree. Now, his 
argument — "It is much easier to believe that twelve men 
would agree to tell a falsehood than to believe that a dead 



128 caskey's book. 

man came to life.** I like the boldness of the man! Charge 
it home on these twelve ignorant Galilean fishermen, that 
they deliberately, knowingly, and wickedly lied ! Do not 
belittle them by admitting their honesty and good intent, 
while deceived, mislead, mistaken. As a general proposi- 
tion, Mr. Hume's position is unqualifiedly false ; as a special 
proposition, it is true. Had he said, It is much easier for 
me to believe that some twelve men will agree to tell some 
falsehood than to believe that a dead man came to life, he 
would have told the truth. Shakspeare says: ''The world 
is given to lying. ' ' The psalmist said : "In my haste I 
said, All men are liars! " Ah! alas, it is a sad truth that 
the world has been full of lies ; and yet, liars of all times 
have used a good deal of common sense in selecting the 
character and class of lies by them told, and the purposes 
for which they told them. Twelve men agree to tell a false- 
hood. Yes ! and they will all be apt to keep within the lines 
of mental and moral laws governing mind and heart. All 
lies of all liars have been in accordance to unchanging 
mental and moral law. The difference between Hume an.l 
all Christians is that we believe in one miracle in regard to 
the issue now involved ; Hume and his adherents believe in 
two. We believe that the physical law of death was re- 
versed, and that life came forth from the grave. To avoid 
this, they are compelled, as we shall clearly see, to make 
these twelve men reverse the laws of mind and heart to 
enable them to tell the lie Hume says they told. This will 
clearly appear when we examine the lie they are charged 
with telling by mutual agreement. I here fearlessly assert 
that at the time the writer said he could not believe a mira- 
cle, he deceived himself, and in his heart two miracles dwelt. 
That is, if these twelve did what he says they did, lied? No 
man lives who does not believe in miracles. He who created 



INFIDELITY MET ON ITS OWN CHOSEN GROUND. 129 

man never gave him the power to choose whether he would 
believe in a miracle or not. The choice is between two 
classes of miracles. If man to high and holy heaven 
ascend, he will be upborne there on the faith in miracles ; 
if he sink to deepest hell, faith in miracles and actions, 
growing out of the faith, will press him down. There is 
salvation in one, damnation m the other. 

Let us now examine lies uttered under the influence 
of the law of motive, mind, and heart. For what are lies 
told? Men will lie for wealth, for fame, power, to escape 
from prison, to avoid danger or pain, to gratify hate, for 
revenge, to benefit a friend, for amusement. These will suflSce 
for the present. Will some of the admirers of this grand argu- 
ment tell us which of these motives actuated these twelve' 
men when they told the falsehood ? Or will they make an 
effort to find a motive? Hume failed even to try. Surely it 
was not to aid a friend or hurt a foe, not to benefit their Mas- 
ter dead, nor bless themselves. These men were Jews by 
birth, education, and religion — raised up under the law of 
Moses, and at the feet of their priesthood ; taught from their 
infancy that lying was one of the meanest vices condemned 
in their law ; had stood by smoking altars, bathed in blood, 
to atone for that and other sins ; taught that if they lied 
their hope of a home in Abraham's bosom was blotted out 
forever, and that Gehenna was their doom. Add to this the 
fact that they had cut themselves off from their sacrifices, 
under their law, by accepting the sacrifice of him whom they 
preached. Another fact, that for more than three years they 
had been with him, listened to the lessons of divine wisdom 
from him, against whose character for truth, purity, and every 
virtue that can adorn life and make death glorious, even infi- 
delity can bring no railing accusation. Yet, in view of all these 
facts, this man says they lied — lied without a motive, an ob- 



130 caskey's book. 

ject, or an end. If their motive is ever found by infidelity, it 
will be found in the miraculous, the extraordinary, the su- 
pernatural. Then our victory is complete and infidelity is 
dead. Having sketched the character of the apostles, we 
now notice their story. If lie it was, what is it, and what 
does it involve on all the persons connected with it, on all 
the actors in this foul and bloody tragedy ? Suppose these 
men had been liars, and had gone all their lives to a college 
where nothing but lies were taught, and had graduated with 
the first dishonors of the institution presided over by the 
father of lies, and had done nothing but lie all their lives? 
If this were all proven it would not help Hume or any other 
infidel out of the difficulty in which the particular falsehood 
charged places him. What is it? That Christ has risen 
from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept ! 
What mighty miraculous power contravened the law of mind 
and made them select this particular one? Was not the 
world full of lies? — lies ecclesiastic, lies mythological, lies 
poetic, lies literary, lies political, lies scientific, lies lying all 
around, their waves slushing over the very confines of the 
shores of time, and almost laving the glory-gilded sands of 
the eternal shore. These twelve men could have preached 
all the lies in the Bible and out of it ; might have told them all 
in the palace chamber of Caesar, with Pilate and Herod and 
all Rome as auditors, and not a voice would have been raised 
to condemn nor a hand raised to hurt. And yet Hume 
has the unblushing impudence to ask me to believe that 
these twelve. sensible men chose the only one in which there 
was danger, poverty, infamy, stripes, imprisonment, and 
death. Where did this falsehood strike ? Whom did it 
strike, and how? It struck imperial Csesar in the face and 
branded him as a foul abortion of a king. It wrapped the 
mantle of murder around his kingly form, and sent him 



INFIDELITY MET ON ITS OWN CHOSEN GROUND. 131 

down the stream of time with the indellible mark of Cain 
upon his brow, as accessory to the murder of an innocent 
man. If God raised him from the dead, by that act he de- 
clared him his Son, and the charge under which he was 
arraigned, tried, condemned, and crucified is proven false. 
And now, Pilate, what have you to say when this is preached 
in Rome ? That you put the innocent to an ignominious 
death when law, honor, justice, and your oath bound you 
to protect him in all his rights. True, you said yon found 
no fault in the man, but you cowardly yielded to the bowl- 
ings of an infuriated mob to prevent them from impairing 
your influence with Caesar. True, you washed your pointed 
hands in token of your innocence ; but you may stand on 
the shore of the surging sea and wash until the fires of the 
last day dry up the last drop, the stain of innocent blood is 
there. And as to Herod, already his skirts are clotted with 
the gore of murdered babes. He filled up the overflowing 
cup of iniquity by adding tihe blood of God's Son. 

At the time this lie, according to Hume, was told, there 
were three mighty powers that controlled the world : the 
Politics of Rome, the Mythology of Greece, and the Religion 
of the Jews. If the doctrine taught by this risen man pre- 
vailed, the principle upon which the Roman political fabric 
was builded crumbles to dust. The Grecian philosophers well 
knew that if it were believed that Christ had risen from the 
dead, their temples would be deserted ; that instead of 
heathen worshipers wending their way to the temples of 
idol gods, they would gather around the cross ; that the 
gods of Greece from their costly pedestals would tumble 
down into the dust. The Religion of the Jews, grown hoar 
with the ages, God as its author, Syria as its birthplace, 
Moses as its mediator, with its long line of prophets, priests, 
and kings, smoking altars and bleeding beasts — these must 



132 casket's book. 

all be overcome and supplanted. And what prodigious power 
is to do the work? A single lie told by twelve obscure, un- 
known, illiterate fishermen ! The crime of murder must be 
charged home against Jew and Roman ; the wrath of these 
great nations stirred to their deepest depths. What possible 
motive could prompt? What prospect of success could have 
spread out before them ? What had they to gain if they did 
succeed? They were woi-king for another, and they knew 
that he was dead. 

It will not do to say that they did not know the gain to 
themselves when they entered on this fearful enterprise. 
That would be to change the bill of indictment and prefer a 
charge of idiocy or of insanity. Come, gentlemen infidels, 
deal fairly! No dodging. If admitted that these men 
were so incomparably stupid as not to know where and 
how the blow would fall on them, how long would it have 
taken them to learn that they had roused up the lion in his 
den? That bondage, imprisonment, stripes, and death was 
all the reward that they would get in this world for the lie 
told, and nothing in the world to come ? 

Under the influence of all the laws of motive, mind, nnd 
heart, would they not have taken it back, and saved them- 
selves the years of torture to which they submitted ? Instead 
of this, Mr. Hume makes them perform two miracles, anni- 
hilates the laws of mind and heart by conceiving the idea of 
telling this lie, and then falhng in love with the reward that 
they would and did get for adhering to it. Did Mr. Hume, 
or any other infidel, ever know of one man who told a lie 
when he knew that such fearful suffering would follow? 
Never! It was in the language of this writer without the 
experience of the whole world ; and that is the reason given 
by him why he could not believe a miracle ; and then without 
a blush of shame he accuses these twelve men of doing what 



INFIDELITY MET ON ITS OWN CHOSEN GROUND. 133 

he knows no one man ever did ; doing that which wars as 
much with his experience, and the experience of the entire 
world, as the resurrection of the dead. 

Why did these men go to martyrdom ? At this point, some 
infidel writers make a false issue in order to cover defeat. 
They say, and truly say, that men in all ages have gone to 
the stake for their faith, although what they believed was 
false; that martyrdom don't prove the truth of things be- 
lieved. The difference between the apostolic, and all other, 
martyrs is world-wide. It was not for that which they be- 
lieved that they died, but for that which they knew. They 
knew whether what they told was true or false. Others 
acting under laws of mind and heart dare not renounce their 
faitli, for fear of being damned themselves and of damning 
others. But these men overturn those laws, and won't tell 
the truth when the truth could have jeopardized the interest 
of no one for time or eternity. Thus we fasten upon Hume 
and his adherents their faith in miracles. Now, what are 
they to do — will they deny the laws of mind and heart? 
Dare they deny the fact that the men that told this lie did 
not run the plowshare of ruin through them both ! Or will 
they take the position that for physical law to be suspended 
or reversed, is a miracle, but for the same to be done with 
mental and moral law, is no miracle? A closing thought, 
and this lecture ends : It was among their own people that 
these men were to add the crowning miracle by acting in 
defiance of all laws known to men. 

This is apparent when we measure the intensity of a Jew's 
religious feelings — the tenacity with which he holds on to it ; 
the deepseated veneration for Moses, as attested by past and 
present history. It was the work of these men to tear the 
crown of mediatorial and legislative authority from the brow 
Moses, and place it on the brow of this dead man ; to rend off 



134 casket's book. 

the robes from the consecrated forms of Aaronic priesthood 
and fold them around the Christ ; to stop the flow of blood 
that had stained their altars for fifteen hundred years ; to 
hush to silence the thunders of Sinai, and dim forever its 
lightning flash ; to dig deep the grave of their own fondly 
loved Judaism and bury it out of sight in the Savior's 
transient home of death, with all its ponderous rites and 
ceremonies ; its kings, who ruled by divine right in room 
of God ; its mediator and law-giver ; fast days, and feast 
days, and its holy Sabbath day ; and then inaugurate this 
man as the only king, prophet, priest and mediator. It was 
for them to stand in the presence of their assembled nation, 
in the presence of their Sanhedrim, in the presence of their 
venerated priesthood, and hurl the charge of murder 
against them all — a murder that cut them off from all hope 
forever ! There was no hope of pardon for him who slew 
the anointed of the Lord. He was doomed. This they did, 
and proved it to the satisfaction and dismay of three thou- 
sand of the accused. Their hearts were pierced, and the 
guilt admitted. Yet, we are told that, despite all these facts, 
with all these surroundings, these men were acting under the 
laws governing mind, motive, and feelings ; that there is 
nothing supernatural ; no miraculous influence controlled 
and sustained them. Shame, where is thy blush ! ! 



CHAPTER XI. 

A LECTURE AGAINST DEISM. 

'N my preceding lectures I have made an effort to sus- 
tain the claims of Christ and the Bible against the 
^1 1[ attacks of infidelity. In this lecture I propose to take 
<^ the offensive — to be aggressive — to carry the war 
into A^frica. To put them on the defensive part, confining 
myself to that phase of infidelity known as Deism. Infidelity 
puts on so many and varied forms, comes in such a variety 
of shapes, it is somewhat difficult to keep up with its chang- 
ing fronts. We have infidelity Atheistic, Deistic ; infidelity 
Jewish, and this divided into two forms, the older believing 
in the Old Testament, but infidel in regard to the New ; the 
other, embracing German rationalism, is infidel in regard to 
the inspiration of the Old. We have infideUty Spiritualistic, 
Scientific, Materialistic and, as Adventism teaches, infidelity 
Religionistic. When driven from one post they take shelter 
in another. We drive Deism into Atheism, which used to 
teach that all things came by chance. When her life was 
being crushed out, she took down her banner of chance 
which she had been flaunting in the face of the world. And 
now she conceals her ugly face behind a mask of agnosti- 
cism. God be thanked ! The end is reached. They can no 
farther go ; the bottom is reached. And until they can con- 
jure up something less than nothing, they are compelled to 
stop. No more changes can be rung upon the thing called 
agnosticism. It has one advantage over all the creeds that 

(135) 



136 . casket's book. 

men have made. It has fewer articles of faith ; it is all 
expressed in three short words — do not know 1 And it is 
by no means certain that they know that they don't know. 
From whence came you? Don't know. Whither going? 
Don't know. Is there for man a future life ? Don't know. 
It occurs to me that any man who has no faith in regard to 
his past or future, and cannot get up a decent conjecture, 
has sunk himself lower in creation's scale than the poor 
Digger Indian ; for he has at least a think so — a clouded 
superstition. The man has sold out to the devil ; and, for 
once, the devil is badly swindled in trade, provided he gives 
anything for their souls. And when pay-day comes, had I 
any acquaintance with his brimstone majesty, or if some of 
them will give me an introduction to their father, as a lawyer 
I would advise him to repudiate the debt. I would get him 
off on the well known principle of law, that a man shall not 
give something for nothing. And the man who knows 
nothing, believes nothing, hopes for nothing, fears nothing, 
desires nothing, don't want to believe anything, is himself 
a nothing. The case is clearly made out, and the devil is 
absolved from payment. 

There are two facts in regard to all forms of infidelity 
which create an impression on my mind that infidels are not 
as good as they ought and might be. The first is, that while 
their own antagonisms are as well defined, as clearly cut as 
the antagonism between any of them and Christianity, when 
religion comes against them they all shoulder arms and wage 
a war of extermination. But, when they as sharply antago- 
nize against each other in theory, they let each other alone. 
The second is, that when any phase of it makes an onslaught 
on the citadel of Christianity, there is a rallying of the clans, 
their differences all forgotten. Whether of the Jew, Spir- 
itist, Deist, Atheist, Darwinistic, Agnostic, T wish they 



A LECTURE AGAINST DEISM. 137 

would muster up courage to engage in a conflict as fierce 
among themselves, as against the Lord. I will now attend 
to your side of this many-sided thing. The first difference 
between us is you claim to have but one Book, from the 
pages of which to derive all your knowledge of God, his 
nature, attributes, character. In the language of the Chris- 
tian philosopher, you reason from nature up to nature's 
God ; you profess to have learned more and better truths 
from this one volume than we have from two — the volume 
of Nature and of Revelation. Well, this is modest, to say 
the least ! Now, I propose to close the volume of revela- 
tion, put out its light, obliterate all that it says of God or 
man, of time or eternity, of this world or any other, of 
man's origin, or future destiny. This, of course, will 
gratify you, since you are always grumbling over the slan- 
ders perpetrated against God by the Bible. The book being 
closed, I deny that there is a God, and demand from you 
the proof. On what page in your ponderous book did you 
read there is one God, and no more? In the language of 
one of your great apostles of Deism, Thomas Paine, Did 
not heathen philosophers pour over its pages and turn over 
its leaves, and study the handwritings therein found as in- 
tently as you have ? Were they not as competent to explore 
all the hidden mysteries as you are? Did not they have all 
the facilities to compel the volume to tell all it knew that you 
ever had? Did they not bring as great mental powers to the 
work as Deism can boast among all her champions ? And J 
grant that they are not few. I have met with no grander 
minds than among the old heathen philosophers ; no more 
profound thinkers, no better logicians exists to-day. Was 
this the lesson learned by them ? Not a word of it ! But, 
the very opposite — Plurality. I know it is said that Socrates 
and Plato believed in the oneness, unity of God. It is 



138 casket's book. 

false! and not a fair interpretation of their words and 
actions as a whole. If proven at all, it is done by garbling, 
scrapping, detaching what they said from its context, just as 
sectarianism does the Bible to support their creeds. Socrates 
sacrificed to a rooster. Was that chicken the one God? 
Even if it were clearly established that any of them found 
out that there is but one God, I would still deny that they 
learned the truth from nature, and give three reasons for the 
denial. First. There is nothing in nature to give birth to 
the thought. Second. They never said they learned it there, 
and never gave us the data from which the conclusion might 
have been drawn. Third. They might get it from Jewish 
tradition. If you will name the philosopher, and give satis- 
factory proof that he had the truth, and I fail to show con- 
tact with the stream of Judaism, then I abandon that reason 
at once. Will you make an effort to prove one God from 
any or all things written in your book? There is but one 
way that you have ever tried. Indeed, there is but one way 
to try, by the line of thought employed by Christian philos- 
ophers, from whom you get all your proof, such as it is. I 
will grant you all the aid to be derived from these philoso- 
phers, such as Paley, Bown, Abercrombe, and all the 
natural religionists, who undertook to reach God through 
nature. While I resjoect the motives and sympathize with 
feelings that prompted great and good men to undertake to 
prop the Bible with nature ; with the feelings of those who 
now keep them as text-books in our schools and colleges, I 
as heartily condemn their efforts, and do dissent from their 
reasonings. They feared the Bible could not walk the world 
over without crutches ; that the thoughts inscribed on its 
pages, and nowhere else, might perish unless aid was sought 
and found somewhere else to support it. If it is revealed in 
the Bible, then it need not be revealed in nature. If revealed 



A LECTURE AGAINST DEISM. 139 

in nature to be known and read of all men, then it need not 
have been revealed in the Bible. If an innate idea, as was 
contended in ages past, then it need not be revealed in either. 
These, as two revelations, involve God in a work of superero- 
gation. Now, let us try this chain of many links by which 
they think they measured up to God ! The chain of cause 
and effect, of design and designer. Paley finds a watch ; it 
shows design ; then there must have been a designer. The 
watch is an effect, and the maker the cause. Now, from 
this first effect, this first link, every other one is both effect 
and cause. The maker is the cause of the watch, but he is 
the effect of a cause preceding, and that the effect of a cause 
on up ad infinitum. And when Paley, or any other philos- 
opher, puts himself on this line, he may make his chain of 
untold millions of links, and then he is no nearer God than 
when he started with the first. When he has run back to 
the hundred million, the question still is just as pertinent, 
What caused that, who designed that, as when Paley asked. 
Who made the watch? But, conceding for argument's sake 
that it has been found out that there is one God, while I see 
nothing in nature, nothing in the reasoning on the watch or 
its maker to prove one designer, while it does prove design. 
I ask how many designers there were ? One might design 
one part and one another, and if it were possible to get 
back, you might find designers instead of a designer. But, 
as we let you have your God without proof, I next ask, What 
are his attributes? Is he wise or unwise ? Is he good or 
bad ? Does he love or hate man ? I know your answer to 
these interrogatories. He is wise and good. This, you say, 
is taught in nature. I say to the natural religionist, Christian 
philosopher, you have no use for the Bible ; it is not worth 
a thought ; you have learned all of God that is in the Bible. 
To both I say, and fearlessly, that every one of these ideas 



140 casket's book. 

ar.e pilfered by the Deist from the volume he rejects. He 
fools himself, and tries to fool somebody else in believing 
that he got them from nature. Suppose we demand proof 
that God is wise, says the Deist, you need not go any farther 
than yourself to prove the wisdom of our God. What wis- 
dom is manifest in man's structure: the eye to drink in the 
beauties hung o'er his head and profusely scattered around 
him ; olfactories to inhale the delicious odors of a thousand 
blooming flowers ; feet on which to walk, and hands to min- 
ister to his wants. We are ready to exclaim : Wisdom in- 
finite created that wonderful piece of work. But suddenly 
the eye grows dim and sees no more ; the ear ceases to drink 
in the melody of sounds ; the olfactories inhale no odors ; 
his feet cease to move ; his hands fall helpless at his side ; 
he is smitten with death ; nature can follow him no farther ; 
she sees him to corruption turn and is compelled to leave 
him there. Then reason asks. What absurd folly is this? 
If wise to create, what want of wisdom to destroy? 

A man invents a wonderful piece of machinery that will 
lighten toil and benefit a working world. He shows me its 
utility and opens up its hidden wheels and cogs and springs, 
manifesting wisdom, inventive genius, patience in construc- 
tion, and as I begin to appreciate his wisdom and skill, and 
to admire him for his wisdom, he breaks it into a thousand 
fragments, and sa^-s, the world will never see it any more. 
In my heart I execrate the man for his folly. If wise to 
create, it is foolish to destroy. God is good, they say, and 
I ask the proof. Paley runs over the evidences above stated 
in regard to his wisdom, showing how complete the adapta- 
tion of means to ends — to man's happiness the end. He 
enumerates the long and diversified chapter of good from 
which ten thousand blessings flow to man. He reasons as a 
philosopher and correctly reasons. The misfortune is that 



A LECTURE AGAINST DEISM. 141 

he reasons from half premises. In nature there is a chapter 
of evil as long as the chapter of good — pleasure, pain, joy 
and sorrow, happiness and misery, smiles and tears, life and 
death. If all sights were of beauty, if all sounds were full 
harmony, if all inhalations of the olfactories were the aroma 
of sweet flowers, if bright skies, calm and balmy weather, 
beautiful sunlight and gentle breezes, pure water and deli- 
cious viands, if all objects on which the hand is laid thrilled 
the nerves with pleasure, then goodness would unmistakably 
be made known. But is this true? Do the clods of the 
valley, with rumbling sound, falling on the coffin lid, cover- 
ing up the forms we loved, hiding our dead out of our sight, 
bring pleasure through the ear? Does looking at a decom- 
posing corpse of a friend, when the flesh is parting from the 
bones, the hair falling from the head, give pleasure through 
the eye? When the philsopher reasons from this chapter 
of good, this long chapter of blessings, that their author is 
wise, good, and loves us ; then, when he takes up the chapter 
of evils, unexplained, unaccounted for, he is bound, unless 
he intends self-stultification, to reach the conclusion that the 
author of these curses is foolish, bad, and hates the object 
on which they are inflicted. Mr. Paley felt this, and hence 
his lame attempt to account for their existence, and to har- 
monize these conflicting chapters written by the naturalist's 
God in this Deistic volume ! Much better, I think, to have 
given up the whole thing, or have followed in the wake of 
his predecessors and made a king, half god and half devil. 
In grappling with this chapter of evils, Paley says these 
seeming evils are blessings in disguise. Surely it was not 
the philosopher that spoke then. Is gout, rheumatism, 
neuralgia, the whole malarial family of fevers, broken bones, 
the lightning's flash that shrivels up life like the touch of 
Ithuriel's spear, pain ending at last in death, but seem- 



142 casket's book. 

ing? If this be true, then may the merciful Heavenly Father 
save me from the real evils ! All these seeming blessings 
are but curses in disguise ; this seeming good is but evil in 
disguise. That makes us even ! Tell me, Mr. Paley, why 
does your wise, good, and loving God send the yellow 
fever scourge to reap the harvest of death ? Why comes the 
destructive breath of the tornado, uprooting forests, scatter- 
ing houses, mangling the bodies of the inmates, destroying 
in a moment the labor of years ? Why the scathing lightning's 
flash, the deep-toned thunder crash? The best that has 
been done is to throw one evil against the other. The light- 
ning and thunder and storm have scattered the poisonous 
vapors engendered from decajing animal and vegetable 
matter, scattering the malaria, preventing disease and death. 
In all candor, is not this the veriest twaddle that was ever 
penned or spoken? Why does evil number one exist, that 
evil number two must come along and drive it away ? God 
creates the malaria and poisons the atmosphere and kills a 
goodly number with it, and then to undo that evil the tor- 
nado comes and kills one-half of all that disease has left. 
But the other half are saved. Well, this plan of saving life 
may suit the Deists and other Christian philosophers, and 
they may much admire his wisdom, goodness, power, and 
love, but I think it would show greater wisdom to have 
prevented the first — to have prevented vegetables from de- 
composing and animals from dying. Ho surely had the 
power. If you could clothe me with the wisdom and power 
you profess to find in your book concerning God, and I did 
not make a better use of them>^ then I would vacate — sell 
out at half price, cheat the purchaser and quit. Now, I 
think you are bound, as honest men, to tell us why these 
things exist, why man dies? Make an effort, at least, that 
will not disgrace a Hottentot, to account for them, or put 



A LECTURE AGAINST DEISM. 143 

your foot on the neck of this delusion. Mr. Paley next 
throws himself on the doctrine of contrast. Health is not 
appreciated without sickness. No man, says this writer, 
has such an exquisite appreciation of pleasure as he who is 
suddenly relieved from an acute attack of stone. There are 
two things to commend this dogma : First, it is cheap ; and 
second, it is within the reach of all. If you want a good 
draught from pleasure's brimming cup, just go out and 
butt your fool head against the gate-post. The harder the 
bump, the more ecstatic the pleasure. Screw your thumb 
in a vise till you can't bear any more pain, and then give 
the handle another turn and the climax of pleasure is 
reached. On this line, I presume, he will find but few who 
will put his theory into practice, so as a practical theory it 
is dead born. I at least agree to dispense with the entire 
chapter of contrast, to see beauty without deformity, to in- 
hale sweet odors without the stench of the dead carcass, to en- 
joy health without sickness, pleasure without pain. I agree 
to take what is left without the contrast, and he may take 
the contrast. I entered my protest against this dogma when 
but a wee bit of a boy. It was nothing new to me when I 
found it in the philosophy of this truly great and good man. 
My mother taught it me when she used her slipper, then 
consoled me when I felt the smart — when the flesh quivered 
and grew red under the too violent contact between the 
leather of the slipper and the leather of the boy : * ' You 
need not bellow so loud, sonny; it will feel good when it 
quits hurting! " I entered then an earnest protest, and re- 
peat it now, and hope to send it on down the ages, that it 
may be read after I cross over the river — reach the far off 
shining shore where there are no contrasts. And this re- 
minds me of another objection. As I once said in debate 
with an apostle of Spiritualism — the last and vilest garb in 



144 casket's book. 

which infidehty ever clothed its form — I would not give ten 
acres of prairie Texas land and a good mule for the whole 
domain of kingdom come as reported through their lying 
mediums. So I say of Paley's heaven. There will be no 
enjoyment from health, there is no sickness there ; no pleas- 
ure, because no pain ; no joy, because no sorrow. John 
says there is no pain, and when the contrast carried by us 
from this world, if we carry any, fades away, then there is 
no more heaven. 

A step or two further in search after the wisdom and good- 
ness of God, as in nature revealed, must bring this lecture 
to a close. I stand on a promontory hard by the sea. The 
day is beautiful and fair ; the sky is clear and blue. I am 
looking out on the placid world of waters, reflecting from 
the silvery sheen the ten thousand sunbeams glinting on her 
bosom, while all around me are orchards whose fruit is as 
pleasing to the eye as that which tempted Eve ; and last, a 
world of blooming flowers are shedding abroad their beauty 
and their odor, from the branches the song birds pour forth 
their melody. A large sailing sea vessel heaves in sight 
with sails unfurled and fluttering in the gentle winds, while 
on her deck the forms of strength and manhood stand, 
forms of beauty in womanhood ; the strains of music are 
borne to my ears which angels might bend from the battle- 
ments of heaven to hear without a blush. The merry dance 
goes on ; they mix and mingle and wheel in the giddy 
dance. A deistic friend and self have just been discussing 
this question before we came upon the enchanting scene. 
Exultingly he says: "Are not your doubts driven to the 
wind? Drink in this draught of wisdom, power and good- 
ness, and doubt no more." As I am putting the cup to my 
lips, for I am thirsty, a small cloud appears above the sea ; 
it rapidly increases in size, spreading out its dark folds^ 



A LECTUKE AGAINST DEISM. 145 

overshadowing us and the sailing ship ; from its dark bosom 
the living lightning leaps ; the thunderbolt follows ; the 
surface of the waters become agitated ; the billows rise and 
swell and roll ; the heavens darker grow ; the lightnings 
more fiercely flash, the thunder louder roars ; the sails on 
ship are furled, and dismantled of her beauty, with bare 
and bending masts, they hope to outride the storm. The 
dance has ceased, and the merry revelers stand or crouch 
with palid face and trembling forms awaiting the end of the 
conflict between man's skill and the forces of nature. The 
billows now dash and roar, lifting themselves mountain high. 
The vessel climbs up and up, her timbers strain and creak, 
her joints are almost parting ; she plunges down deep into 
the troughing sea, and you think the deep has swallowed 
her up, but she rises up, dashing madly the foam from her 
prow. She would have outridden the storm, for she was 
strongly built and officered well. But hark, that roar that 
is louder than the deafening thunder-tones ; 'tis the roar 
of the maddened billows as they dash in fury against the 
breakers. The doomed vessel plunges on her maddened 
way, while those on board the breakers see, and know their 
doom is sealed. The agonizing cry is heard, ' ' The breakers ! 
The breakers ! ' ' This is the last we hear. The vessel strikes, 
and every soul is lost. I turn with a sad and sorrowing heart 
to ask my deist friend what he thinks of this display of wis- 
dom, goodness, and love of his God? But he had fled in 
horror frem the heartrending scene. 

I stand by the side of my beautiful wife, and we both by 
the cradle of the baby. "We have been reading Paley's 
Moral Philosophy, and I have about embraced its teachings, 
and I say: "Wife, the highest evidence God has given to 
me of his wisdom and goodness is your beautiful self ! 
When I look into your love-lit eyes, your fair face, blushing 

10 



146 casket's book. 

cheeks, and smile-wreathed lips ; and when I think of what 
you have been to me, of your mental and moral attainments, 
your self-sacrifice in my behalf, I feel ashamed that I have 
not a greater appreciation of his character. But, when I 
look on you and the little image of yourself that slumbers 
there, I confess I feel reverential." While speaking, an 
unwonted flush, such as I had never seen before, covers face 
and brow. I lay my hand on her wrist ; her pulse is throb- 
bing and bounding wildly ; I look into her eyes ; they glow 
with flashing light fierce as the glare of the tigress when 
robbed of her whelps. The lurid light of the fire of sudden 
insanity gleams out. With one wild and horrible shriek, 
she dashes out into the darkness. As I turn to follow her 
fleeting form, my steps are arrested by a cry from the cra- 
dle — my babe is in spasms ; its little face is black, its limbs 
contorted, it struggles, gasps — it is dead! ! With breaking 
heart I ask what fiendish power has cursed me thus? The 
deist answers. Our God. Oh! tell me why? The silence 
as it were of death seizes his lips. His cherished volume, by 
which he has dethroned God, rejected the Bible, and, I fear, 
damned his soul, is as silent as the grave. Then he says 
the facts exist, your God is their author as much as is ours. 
How do you yourself dispose of these sad facts ? I am not 
defending the Christian's God, but assaihng yours. The 
defensive is yours. The Christian's Book at least attempts 
to account for this great chapter of evils with the sorrow it 
brings ; yours does not, nor do you. The Bible gives you 
the origin of death and its cause : the wages of sin is death. 
Then it points you to the destruction of the death and its 
cause ; your book does neither ; yours follows man to his 
home among the silent dead, and leaves him there ; no voice 
in nature talks to us of the resurrection of the dead. God, 
future life, resurrection, are in the Bible found, and no- 
where else ! ! 




CHAPTEK XII. 

THE CHURCH. 

'HE blessed Savior said to Peter: *'0n this rock I 
will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it." Since the inauguration of the 
^^} Roman hierarchy, and of denominationalism, the 
meaning of the great teacher has become darkly obscured 
and befogged, until the eyes of very many of our brethren 
are full of smoke from the furnace of the mystery of Baby- 
lon. Educated as we have been, it is almost impossible to 
stop the mental process, so as not to gather in more than the 
Savior meant. When we say, " The Catholic Church," the 
mind acting in accord with mental law, gathers in the whole 
organization — Pope, Cardinal, Archdeacon, Priest, etc. — 
that is, the whole complicated structure, together with the 
doctrine and practice. If one does not know anything about 
it, he simply gathers no idea at all. If he understands it in 
part, he thinks of the part he understands. So of all denom- 
inationalisms. When we say the "Methodist Episcopal 
Church," before there was ever a Mason and Dixon line 
through their Zion, the mind gathers in an organization 
with its bishops, presiding elders, circuit-riders, class- 
leaders, and stewards. Since they run the dividing line, 
there are two distinct ecclesiastical organizations, and we 
designate one by adding tne word " South," the other 
' ' North. ' ' But the organization is the same. This whole 
organism, as a unit or in fact, in a single element entering 

(H7) 



148 casket's book. 

into it in official functions or names, except the name 
bishop, has nothing more to do with the Church of Christ, 
nor with what he meant in using the word church, than has 
a ray of moonshine. They do not even pretend to claim 
that their organization is Scriptural. The most they 
have ever said is, that it is not unscriptural. How in 
reason could Christ say, he would build his church out of 
that which is not Scriptural? The same is true in reference 
to all sectarian establishments. Some of them have a few 
elements of a Scriptural organization ; some none. But or- 
ganization, scriptural or unscriptural, is not an element of 
the church — a component part thereof — is not what the 
great teacher was thinking of — not what he meant when he 
made the great promise concerning his church. But, first, 
we must notice the various claimants to this high and holy 
position, that of the body of Christ, the bride, the Lamb's 
wife, the temple in which the holy Spirit dwells. We have 
Greece, Eome, England, and America — the Greek Church, 
the Roman, the Episcopal, and the Baptist. Each claims to 
be the church to which was committed the ordinances of the 
Lord. How many and fierce have been the conflicts between 
the embattled hosts of claimants. To go no farther from 
home, look at the Baptists and our own people — they af- 
firming that their organization is the church, and we affirm- 
ing the same of the ' ' Church of Christ. ' ' Will these conflicts 
end as the old story of the two snakes that swallowed each 
other? We demolish each other! They prove that we are 
not, and we show that they are not the church, and both 
parties land at last on the truth in spite of themselves — 
that neither they nor we are the church, nor would be, were 
both put together ! I recollect some years ago pointing out 
to a brother who had on hand a debate on this issue, how 
the Baptist preacher would demolish his affirmative if he 



THE CHURCH. 149 

uDderstood the subject, and how to handle the same. He 
says to the Christian preachers : "I understand you received 
one of our members last Sunday." The preacher answers, 
"We did." "How did you receive him?" "By giving 
him the right hand of fellowship," Where was he, in the 
church or out? If in^ your affirmation is dead. If out^ 
then you make the right hand of fellowship from a Christian 
Church the condition of membership in Christ's Kingdom ; 
you overthrow your own teaching ; you teach, as does the 
Holy Spirit, that we are born into his kingdom by a birth 
of water and spirit. Instead of this, they enter by the 
right hand of fellowship. This is worse than the orthodox 
abstract spiritual influence that birth is a birth, without a 
mother, and, I thought, contained enough theological non- 
sense to satisfy the heavy demand for that commodity. 
But this would be a birth without father or mother. Of 
course, no one believes it. It puts no one into the church. 
The Baptist we received was in the church ; therefore, we 
are not the church, as an organization. I have never doubted 
about the Baptist being in the kingdom. The fault I find 
with them is, that they would not behave themselves de- 
cently in the kingdom, did not obey the apostolic injunction. 
They thought more highly of themselves than they ought to 
have thought, became puffed up and their foolish hearts 
were darkened. They became selfish, exclusive, and pro- 
scriptive ; built a staked-and-ridered fence around themselves, 
and vowed that they would eat with no sheep that would not 
wear their mark and brand. And they then threw so much 
dry straw out of their theological barn loft that sheep with 
any degree of taste for sweet, green grass were compelled 
to jump out, or starve. If anything could be astonishing, 
it would be the influence that this uneducational idea has 
had over as grand minds as ever thought. It threw its dark 



150 casket's book. 

shadow over the giant thinker of Bethany, and its mist ob- 
scured his mental vision. He looked at the church from an 
organized standpoint, and thought that the promise of the 
Savior was, he would build an organized body, against which 
the gates of hell should not prevail. And for the first and 
last time in debate was he driven to the wall, when Bishop 
Purcell pressed him to locate the church during the dark 
ages. " If Rome was not the church, what was it? " The 
Donatists, the Cathair, Novations, the Albigeuses, or the 
Waldenses? Bro. Campbell dare not say it was either or 
all of them, for two reasons: they all had heresies that the 
bishop was ready to expose, and Mr. Campbell admitted it ; 
and some of them were as bad as anything held by Rome. 
Second. Mr. Campbell was not a member of either, nor of 
any religious body claiming to be successors of them. And 
had he claimed succession through the Baptist line, none 
knew better than he that Purcell would break it as a gossa- 
mer thread. Where, then, was the church? And what? 
As to the what, he was forced to silence. As to the where, 
he took the Baptist dodge, and hid it out in the wilderness, 
where no eye could see it ; and then the only proof of its 
existence was the promise of Christ that it should exist. 
But the gates of hell had prevailed, so far as banishment, 
at least. And who dare say it was not dead ? I read this 
debate thirty years ago, and was fully satisfied that he was 
wrong. For when right, there lived no man who could press 
him as the bishop did. 

But what is the church if not an organized body, was not 
so easily settled. It gave me weeks and months of anxious 
and laborious thought and investigation. I conferred with 
aged preachers. They said. It is an organization, and we 
are the church. I finally reached the conclusions embodied 



THE CHURCH. 151 

in this sermon, and delivered them in the city of Jackson, 
Miss., in 1856. 

I now return to the claims of these contending parties, 
who claim each one the exclusive right to administer the 
ordinances of the church. First in order is Rome, on papal 
authority and a regular succession of popes. Next, the 
Greeks, through a line of patriarchs. Third, the Episcopal, 
through their bishops. Then the Baptist through a succes- 
sion of churches ; and last and least and most pitiful is ours, 
from the truth that we preach, as the apostles preached, and 
practice as they practiced, organize churches as they organ- 
ized them, therefore we are the church. Yes ! And there is 
another, therefore ; that I am half surprised, as it did not 
prevent any mind from grasping this delusion. That is, 
there has been no church for sixteen hundred years. The 
gates of hell did not only banish it, but absolutely destroyed 
it, if organization is an element or a component part. 
Nothing can exist as a whole without its parts. Apostolic 
organization died with the second century, and was never 
revived until A. Campbell and his co-workers dug it up from 
its burial place among the rubbish of Rome and sectarian- 
dom. If the claims of either are valid, then my trouble 
begins. If either has the exclusive right to the ordinances 
and their administration, and thereby the right of induction 
into the Kingdom of Christ, then no man, living or dead, 
can tell whether he has been baptised or not ; whether he is 
in the kingdom or out of it, unless he is willing to do as an 
unfledged bird, open his mouth and swallow down whatever 
pope, bishop. Baptist, or patriarch may choose to give. I 
would not have time, if my life were lengthened out to twice 
three score years and ten, to examine the evidence in proof 
of their claim. There are five claimants, each demanding 
a hearing, and demanding a favorable verdict. Of course, 



152 casket's book. 

no honest man will examine the claims of one and decide 
against the others ; this would disqualify a man as a juror 
where nothing more valuable than a yearling calf is involved. 
If there are five claimants, each with his proof, to hear 
the evidence of one and not the others, would be such 
an outrage against the principle of justice that the man 
would blight his life. I say to these dreamers over myths, 
if you will do two things, then I will go to work and spend 
the remainder of my days in settling the question whether 
I am in the kingdom or out, baptized or unbaptized. Those 
two things are, to furnish me with the books containing 
your evidence, and get the good Lord to promise to let me 
live until I can complete the more than Herculean task. 
I promise faithfully to examine all the proof offered by all 
the parties and a true verdict render, according to the evi- 
dence. I have not the books, nor money to buy them, nor 
half years enough to get half through, so I think I had bet- 
ter spend my time in preaching the unsearchable riches of 
Christ and in exposing the absurdities of these pretenders. 
Now, let us glance at what a man has to do in order to 
decide to whom baptism of right belongs. He has to begin 
with the present pope, the last link in the chain of apostolic 
succession, and feel his way, link by link, back through 
eighteen hundred j^ears ; through ages of moral darkness so 
thick that it might almost be felt; through the age when 
church and world were rivals in wickedness ; when men and 
devils vied with each other to see which could commit the 
greatest number and most horrid character of crimes against 
God and man ; when sacred offices were put up and sold ; 
when bribery and fraud were rife that would now disgrace 
the most corrupt and unscrupulous political cabal that con- 
venes in a low-down doggery ; when the fires of persecution 
brightly blazed, and the wheel broke the bones, and the 



THE CHURCH. 153 

rack tortured out the life, the thumb-screw and hot pincers, 
with which the nails were torn from bleeding flesh ; all imple- 
ments of torture that ingenuity could invent to cause a 
pang, start a tear, or cause a groan were cruelly applied. 
Through these scenes of darkness, blood, tears, and groans 
and death you have to follow this line, feel each link and 
feel certain that no spurious pope crept in, for if one link is 
broken both ends of the long chain fall into the engulfing 
sea of oblivion. When we have run this line eighteen 
hundred years, we have done one-fourth of the task assigned 
us. We must examine the claims and proof of the Greek 
church. She is older and better than all Rome ; better than 
the Episcopal church ; than the Baptist. Fortunately the 
claim set up by a portion of the Christian brotherhood is 
short. You are not perplexed with long and crooked lines. 
They make short work of it ; do not claim succession. Apos- 
tolic, Papistic, Greek, Episcopal, or Baptistic. We devoutly 
wish that all the others had been as short. They simply put 
it on the ground of being apostolic in preaching and in 
practice. All of these claims, like the Psalmist said of him- 
self, were " conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity " — were 
begotten by unholy ambition and born of the lust for power 
and supremacy. A theft was perpetrated on all Christians ; 
a birthright was stolen while they slept. 

When a person becomes a child of God — a joint heir 
with his elder brother, the Lord Jesus Christ — he inherits 
all the blessings, privileges, and benefits growing out of the 
relationship, and assumes all the responsibilities, obligations, 
and duties, mental, moral, and physical, that he has the 
ability to discharge, the limit being that of ability alone. 

We are all one in Christ Jesus. All inherited the right to 
preach, sing, pray, break bread, exhort, baptize. 

Whether all would exercise these rights depended upon 



154 casket's book. 

circumstances. The first theft was to deprive what was then 
and now is called the laity of the divine right to baptize — 
make it an official act to be performed by certain officials. 
Perhaps you will not appreciate the great gain to the clergy 
in this immense and unprecedented stride toward greatness 
and power unless informed of the fact that baptism was then 
administered by all and upon all, for the remission of sins. 
It required hundreds of years' schooling in the college of 
religious ignorance to turn out a graduate with the idea that 
there was any other purpose for which it was administered. 
I ought to have stated that in order of time, their first theft 
was their exclusive right to preach, depriving all who, 
according to their standard, were not specially called and 
sent. Put these two claims together with the design of 
baptism, and then you are prepared to see what the clergy 
gained and the church lost. 

Their first claim — the special call — indicated superior 
mind, heart, or physical power, some quahfication not pos- 
sessed by others, God being the judge. This call pointed 
them out as the special pets of heaven, and as such, entitled 
to our reverence. They succeeded. The second — the exclu- 
sive right to baptize — made them complete masters of the 
situation. It brought both church and world to their feet. 
It said to the world, you can't be saved without preaching, 
we alone can preach ; you can not be saved without baptism, 
we alone can baptize. It said to the church, you can have 
no more added to your numbers. Baptism is the door into 
the church — into the kingdom — and we hold the keys. 
You can have no access to the table appointed by your elder 
brother, that you may show your faith in his dying love. 
We are the custodians of the Lord's supper! ^' If you eat 
not and drink not, you have no Hfe in you," and whether 
you eat or drink depends on us. 



THE CHURCH. 155 

Your pardon did depend on us, your spiritual life now 
depends on us. If you refuse to eat of the bread and drink 
of the cup you die for trampling on his body and blood ; 
without us this cannot be done. 

That Protestantism does not see that she is as complete a 
slave under her task-masters as Catholics are under theirs, 
is one of the incomprehensibilities of blind sectarianism. 
You just swapped masters when you found that you were 
dependent on the preacher to baptize you for remission of 
sins. That made him the equal of the pope in his absolving 
power. When you could not commune, as you call it, with- 
out a preacher to consecrate and break bread for you, he 
was the equal of the priest in his iDower to transubstantiate. 
The Catholic could not eat the real body and drink the blood 
without the priest. You could not partake of it emblem- 
atically without the preacher. 

Finding yourselves enslaved, you decided to kill the de- 
sign of baptism and get rid of this much of the yoke ; that 
you would be independent of them so far as pardon of sins 
was concerned. But what of the Lord's supper? Well, we 
make a sort of compromise, and do not partake of it often 
enough to do much harm and no good ; and show thereby 
that we don't care much about it, any way, and we will con- 
sent to bear the yoke for a few minutes once in three months, 
rather than make a fuss. It can not gall our necks very badly 
in that short length of time. My own impression is, that you 
would have done both church and world much less harm had 
you killed the preachers instead of the Lord's institutions. 
And just here is a good place for the fourth party to put in 
their claim. The Baptists say : ' ' None of this applies to us ; 
we do not lord it over God's heritage. We recognize as 
true the declaration of holy writ, that the church is the 
ground and pillar of the truth ; that all authority is in her 



156 casket's book. 

and must emanate from her. The church made us what we 
are, and not we the church." Very plausibly put, but I 
think I will prove, beyond the possibility of a reasonable 
doubt, that the thefts committed by you, in common with 
the others, leave you in really a worse condition than any of 
the others. 

If their line of succession is not broken — if their cable 
does not part — if their anchor holds, and their ship outrides 
the storm — either Catholic, Greek, or any other line of suc- 
cession, except the one you have chosen, I shall as certainly 
wreck your craft on the breakers of truth as the sun shall 
run his circle in the heavens. Sustain your succession of 
churches, still you are stranded. When, with the others, you 
pilfered the exclusive right to preach by virtue of a divine, 
special call you threw a tub to the whale, which the others 
did not. With the others, God nominated and elected ; with 
you, God does the nominating, and the church ratifies by 
ballot the nomination. This made your call about as certain 
as theirs, and, perhaps, gave you additional influence, since 
you could say to them : "I am partly the work of your 
hands." Surely no church will repudiate God's choice, and 
fail to ratify his nomination. And if one be found brave 
enough to do it, all that the nominee for clerical glory has 
to do is to change his membership to another congregation. 
His moral character being good, if he fail to find a Baptist 
Church that wont license him to preach on account of his 
being a fool, he may unite with us, and preach, call or no 
call. I have never heard of one being rejected for the want 
of sense. But when you made baptism an official act, then 
you ruined yourselves, and made your succession not worth 
a thought. You get your authority to preach and baptize 
from the church — claim the exclusive right to baptize — 
repudiating all not administered by your sacred hands, and 



THE CHURCH. 157 

the ofRcial grace, flowing to you through the church. This 
has puffed you up, engendered pride, made you exclusive, 
proscriptive. It is about time this inflated balloon were 
punctured, so the gas may escape before it accumulates to 
the point of explosion, and somebody get hurt. 

There are two, and but two, classes of rights known to 
men. One is a birthright, the other a right created by law. 
American citizenship, with me, is a birthright. To the for- 
eign born, it is a right created by law. The deputy said he 
paid a large sum for his right in Rome ; the apostle said, I am 
free born ! Is baptism, preaching, etc. , a birthright ? If it 
is, it belongs to all. If it is not a birthright, then it is cre- 
ated, and conferred by law. There can be no others. What 
is the condition of a class of men who claim not only the 
right to baptize, but the exclusive right — patented; who 
deny the right by virtue of birth, and don't pretend to show 
their legal right, or right created by divine law? They only 
claim that the church gave them authority to preach and 
baptize for them. My solemn conviction is, in view of all 
the facts in the case, that such another comedy, if it rises 
to that dignity, never was played as when a Baptist preacher 
is made, ordained, and set apart by a church to do for them 
what neither one nor all of them put together claimed the 
shadow of a right to do. It was neither inherited nor cre- 
ated! There is a mingling of the sublime and the ludicrous, 
of the solemn and the farcical, that ought to tickle the ribs 
of death, and bring a smile from the grave. A church of 
fifty or a hundred men and women meeting in solemn coun- 
cil to impart the right to preach the Gospel and baptize in 
the dread names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and by 
the authority of the church, for they dare not baptize unless 
the church says the candidate is all right. This farce is 
gone through with solemn prayer and imposition of hands, 



158 casket's book. 

and the delegated authority passes from the church to the 
newly ordained. What has been passed from the one to the 
other ? The right to preach and to baptize ! They never 
had the right to do either; never claimed the right; never 
exercised the right. They were swindled out of it when 
they allowed their preachers to make it an official act. They 
sold, Esau like, their birthright, for less than he got, and now 
have to go through the pitiful sham of pretending to dele- 
gate to another rights they do not possess. There would be 
sense and Scriptural authority in a body claiming -a birth, or 
inherited rights, for convenience or other reasons delegating 
the rights they had to one of their number. This is in 
accord with all laws of civilization regulating delegated 
powers. But I venture, that when a Baptist Church did 
this piece of work, it was the first time in the world's his- 
tory it was done. And further, that to-day they are the 
only institution, corporation, association, ecclesiastical, po- 
litical, or mystical, that ever attempted to play off such a 
trick before high heaven. If they say it is a right created 
by divine law, they can easily point to chapter and verse in 
the divine code where the great law-giver authorizes any man, 
or body of men, to confer upon another that which they 
have not. 

What would the political world think if a hundred men, 
all foreigners, were to call a meeting and send up one of 
their number to vote in a convention? The president says: 
'' I am informed that not one of the men who sent you here 
had the right to vote." " That is true," responds the dele- 
gate. *' What, then, could have put it into their heads, and 
yours, that you would be allowed to vote?" "We had 
never thought of it, but happened to attend a Baptist meet- 
ing and saw a man ordained to preach and baptize. We 
learned, on inquiry, that none of them had the right to do it, 



THE CHURCH. 159 

SO wc concluded that we could delegate what we did not 
possess, and appointing me would create the right. Are you 
going to let me vote?" If the president were a Baptist, 
don't you think he would pull all the hair out of his head 
and adjourn the convention? It is not at all strange that all 
the churches not claiming any succession should have passed 
by your claims and never assailed your right to baptize at 
all, for they are all in glass houses. Any inquiry into your 
right involves theirs ; they are all in the same condition. 
There is not a preacher in the world who has a right to 
baptize unless he gets it by birth or through succession apos- 
tolic. To repudiate them both and then prate about the 
right is the sheerest nonsense ever uttered outside a lunatic 
asylum. Fortunately, you inherit the right if born of God, 
and your baptism is as valid as though administered by 
pope, bishop, or patriarch. This is true, whether you believe 
it or not. 

I am somewhat surprised that my brethren, and especially 
our press, has for so long a time suffered our Baptist breth- 
ren to glory in their shame, and not plucked this bunch of 
peacock feathers out of the tail of this strutting jack-daw. 
But I must close this discourse, resuming the subject in my 
next. 




CHAPTEE XIII. 

THE CHUECH. 

No. 2. 

T THE close of our first discourse on The Church we 
think we left our Baptist brethren floundering in the 
S "slough of despond," or with the great and good 
T^^^r* John Bunyan, locked up in the castle of ' ' Giant 
Despair," door locked and key lost. After the perpetra- 
tion of such a theft on Glod's children by the clergy; after 
feloniously filching from them their inalienable rights and 
hiding the spoils under their clerical cloaks, we could 
expect nothing but evil, discord, and confusion to follow 
such an outrage upon a wronged and forbearing house- 
hold. Strange to say, this bone of contention, this apple 
of discord, originated with the household instead of the 
preachers. They suggested the theft and the preachers 
took advantage of their weakness and inexperience, making 
baptism an official act and attaching a validity thereto, on 
account of the administrator. Originated among the breth- 
ren at Corinth in the early da3^s of Paul's ministry. The 
apostle, as soon as he saw the first appearance of the 
hydra-headed monster, put his foot on it and crushed its 
life out during the apostolic age, but the dragon teeth were 
sown, and an abundant harvest came up as soon as the 
apostles passed away. 

One said, I am of Paul, and another of ApoUos ; others 
for Cephas. A few nobly stood up and said, we are for 
(160) 



THE CHURCH. 161 

Christ ! So soon as Paul learned the status of affairs, in- 
stead of availing himself of the honors they wished to gather 
around him, he promptly rebuked them, and evidently meant 
to sever forever the administration of baptism from office, 
even apostolic. When he learned that they were attaching 
importance to the institution because administered by him, 
he stopped and said he would baptize no more of them until 
he could teach them better sense. This, his language to 
them clearly shows, when he thanks God that he had bap- 
tized but few of them, lest they should say that he baptized 
in his own name. As they had made such a foolish blunder 
about the value of the commandment on account of him who 
aided them to obey it, there was no telling where their folly 
would stop if not checked. From the character of those he 
did baptize (Crispus, Gains, and household of Stephanas), 
we feel assured that they had not fallen into this exceed- 
ingly foolish and hurtful notion — they were among those 
that said: " I am for Christ." 

And now Paul gives them a piece of information which, 
if looked at with the eye of common sense, not blinded by 
ignorance, superstition, or the lust of power, would seem to 
be a work of supererogation. " I was not sent to baptize, 
but to preach the Gospel." I was not made an apostle in 
order that I might baptize ; I could have done this without 
being an apostle. This was a duty and privilege inherited 
when I became a Christian, to be discharged when circum- 
stances make it necessary. If it is official — to be done 
alone by the apostles and their successors — how dare the 
apostle refuse to perform this high official duty? There 
were no other apostles nor officials in Corinth, but other 
Corinthians were baptized I When you tell us who did the 
baptizing, down comes your whole fabric and your vaunted 
claims lie buried in the rubbish. It may be said that the 

11 



162 casket's book. 

apostle authorized some of the brethren to do the baptizing. 
There were no officials there. Will you say he authorized 
lay members? Did you, as his successor, ever do this? He 
could not confer or transfer the right, for to him it was a 
birthright, held in common with all the household of faith, 
not an apostolic right. If apostolic, where do you find his 
authority to transmit to any but his successors in office ? 
This lets the poor, down-trodden, priest-ridden laity into 
the succession. When we look at the act to be performed, 
and the needed qualifications to its performance, and then 
look at the apostolic office and the qualifications requisite 
thereto, Paul might truly say, Christ sent me not to baptize, 
but to do that which no one else, not similarly sent and 
qualified, could do. To baptize requires sufficient physical 
strength to put a person under the water and raise him up 
out of the same, if immersion was the act ; if sprinkling, 
much less would be more than enough ; enough mental 
strength to find his way into the water, put the subject in 
and take him out, and then find his way out. This is all ! 

To be an apostle a man must have seen the Lord Jesus ; 
he must be inspired by the Holy Spirit sent down from 
heaven ; he must speak in tongues ; possess the power to 
perform miracles, and the power to impart it to others. 
O, ye Corinthians ! and all others afflicted with this official 
mania, look at the qualifications of this man among men, 
natural, acquired, supernatural, and divine. "I thank God 
that I speak in tongues more than ye all!" Abundant in 
revelations. When you think of these, then think how 
incomparably silly we were ever to have thought that these 
were given for the purpose of baptizing. 

Paul baptized as a Christian, not as an apostle. The first 
man he put into the kingdom of his Savior rose up out of 
the watery grave, from which he came forth with as much 



THE CHURCH. 163 

authority to baptize as Paul had to baptize him. A right 
higher than apostolic — a constitutional right, an inherited 
right — conferred by the Elder Brother whom Paul, himself, 
humbly served. 

Don't you suppose that Paul had common sense enough 
to know, from his own baptism, that it was not an official 
act? For he was baptized by an humble layman in the city 
of Damascus. Beyond question, there have been more 
ridiculous follies, absurdities, and crudities taught and 
practiced on this subject than any other within the range 
of human thought. 

I mention but two, and must then pass to another branch 
of the subject. Baptism, with most of the churches, is 
classed among the non-essentials. Faith and repentance 
are the essentials. The common herd — the laity — are al- 
lowed to do all they can to aid the poor, deluded, misguided 
seeker to do these essential commandments. But, when it 
comes to the non-essential, "Hands off ! " is the order from 
headquarters. None but those on whose heads holy hands 
have been laid can aid the poor fellow in obeying this non- 
essential thing. The essential can be done alone, and with- 
out the aid even of the laity, but this non-essential requires 
a preacher. The action itself being made by you non-essen- 
tial, you made yourself just like the thing done. And your 
subject in allowing himself to be gulled by your nonsense, 
followed suit, and made himself non-essential too. Another 
is the time wasted by some of the Baptists and of my 
brethren in meeting a Pedo-Baptist quibble against immer- 
sion ; the sprinkler contending that twelve men could not 
immerse three thousand in a day ; the others ascertaining 
by actual observation, done for the purpose of settling the 
vexed question — timing the administrator and giving us the 
figures — showing that it could be done, and nobody half 



164. 

try at that. The sprinkler's argument is based upon a bold- 
faced assumption; the necessity of proving his premises 
never seems to have occurred to his mind. That the twelve 
did all the baptizing, even repudiating, as they do, the birth- 
right, they can't prove that either of the apostles did the 
baptizing, and the universally admitted doctrine that what- 
ever is done by an agent is done by the principal. If com- 
mitted to them as apostles, surely they had the right to 
command others to do it. I do not presume it will be con- 
tended that baptizing was any more apostolic than preaching ; 
and yet we find that as soon as others learned what to preach, 
the whole church were scattered abroad, except these called 
and sent baptizers, the apostles who remained at Jerusalem. 
The others went forth everywhere, preaching the word ; bap- 
tism was an act of obedience to the word ; but, when they 
preached, as did the apostles, and the heart-smitten penitent 
asked. What must I do to be saved? "Repent and be bap- 
tized." But, by the way, the baptizers are all at Jerusalem, 
and when any of them will come along this way, we know 
not; till then, you will have to remain in your sins — you 
may die before they come, and be damned. 

The poor sinner says, Where did you get the right to 
preach? " O, that we inherited; bat this non-essential 
thing is too sacred for us to touch with our unclean hands." 
Now, if any one believes that these five thousand and more 
went out on such a Don Quixotic expedition, I envy him not 
his boundless credulity. The immersionist meets the argu- 
ment, conceding the assumption, and makes his figures. 
He unquestionably gains the victory, and need not exclaim, 
with the victorious commander when congratulated on his 
splendid victory upon a stubbornly contested field, as look- 
ing on the vast numbers of the dead, wounded, and dying, 
he exclaimed : "Another such a victory, and I am ruined." 



THE CHURCH. 165 

No other is needed to ruin him who makes the argument 
upon the premises assumed and conceded ! 

The sprinkler has no right to sprinkle at all, nor the im- 
mersers to immerse, unless the argument comes from Eome 
or England. From any other source, they set themselves 
adrift without right. 

But the climax of the ludicrous is reached when a Baptist 
and Pedo-Baptist meet in debate on the mode, as they call 
it. Both admit that it is non-essential ; and yet the Baptist 
earnestly contends that it is very essential how a non-essen- 
tial thing is done ! 

Well, common sense would say it matters not how, nor 
whether done at all. Some say it is essential to obedience. 
Why, it is obedience itself ! Leaving now those claiming to 
be the church par excellence (not forgetting the fact, as pre- 
sented in the preceding sermon, of their claim to be the 
exclusive custodians of this and other institutions), it is 
utterly impossible for any to say whether he is in the king- 
dom or out of it — baptized or unbaptized. Nor can he 
ever satisfy himself without turning knave or fool. Life is 
too short, and evidence too voluminous to be examined. If 
he runs back one line and refuses to run the others, then he 
is a knave. If he accepts the claims of either without ex- 
amination, then he is a fool ; and it don't matter whether in 
or out. An honest man and man of sense has no chance in 
this crowd. Four lines to run through more than eighteen 
hundred years, the links of four chains, every link exam- 
. ined. Just think of it, and give up in despair ! 

To think that the loving Heavenly Father would make my 
salvation depend even remotely on such miserable juggling 
priestcraft, is enough to stir up the ire of a saint. And if 
I were not the best natured writer after whom you ever read, 
I would stop right here, and say hard things. Leaving now 



166 casket's book. 

those claimants to settle the matter among themselves, we 
turn our attention to another class, not so arrogant in their 
pretentions, but no less unfortunate. Their modesty is 
about their only merit. They set up no claim to succession 
of any sort. They claim to be branches of Christ' s Church. 
If they are all branches, there are two questions that obtrude 
themselves, and demand answers: First. From what did 
they branch ? Second. Why did they branch ? If they are 
branches, then, where and what is the church? 

They deny that any of these parties mentioned are the 
churchy but admit that they also are branches. These 
branches grew up at different periods of time, and at differ- 
ent geographical points, and are slightly different, to say 
the least, in planting, culture, growth, and fruit. They 
don't adopt the divine grafting process, else the fruit would 
all be like that into which it is grafted. For, the great 
apostle to the Gentiles tells us that we are grafted — con- 
trary to nature. They are bound to adopt the seedling pro- 
cess ; then whence came the seed? On what tree did the 
seed grow and mature? The time was when there were no 
branches ; then what was the church ? If all are branches, 
as organisms (and that is the only sense in which they use 
it), then it is all down right nonsense to talk about the church 
at all. It is all branches, and no church ; all streams, and 
no fountain; all arms and legs, and no body. If they will 
unite all the branches, then what have 3"0U? You have the 
one body, but no arms or legs. Wliat have you done by this 
amalgamation of branches ? Simply blotted out the branches 
and wiped out the disgrace which attaches to each and all 
who engaged in this wild theological branch scheme of bank- 
ing. Come together, and you are the church ; the branches 
all dead — destroyed! And need anyone be told that no 
element of the church of Jesus Christ is destructible. These 



THE CHURCH. 167 

branches can be destroyed, and destroyed by the hands of 
those who created them. Therefore, they are no part or 
parcel of the church, — neither branch, twig, leaf, flower, 
or bud. 

When they commenced this branch-making business they 
repudiated the birthright to preach and baptize ; for this 
would have disrobed all the specially called and sent gentry 
of their stolen power, and they would have stood self-con- 
victed of the theft. It is needless to say that the preachers 
were the mechanics, in this theological workshop, who tink- 
ered up the botched job. 

We are bound to make a branch ; we can't live in any of 
these establishments now claiming to be the church ; if we 
enter the Church of Christ, then we step down and out, and 
are on a level with the laity ; no superiority, no official dig- 
nity, no power to lord it over God's heritage. And, Lucifer 
like, you decided that it was better for you to reign in a 
branch than to serve in the church. But can't we just make 
a branch? What is to hinder? Well, gentlemen branch 
church-makers, I will tell you one thing that was in your 
way then, that is in your way yet, and will be until it stran- 
gles the branch life out of the last one of you. It is that 
little non-essential commandment, ' ' Be baptized ! " It is 
little short of a miracle to trace out the efforts made to 
cripple and kill this command; and the influence it has 
imperceptibly exerted in the complicated machinery of 
churches. Its greatest influence is yet in the future ; it is 
destined to destroy this whole branch patch- work. Yes, gen- 
tlemen clergy, your systems, however cunningly devised, are 
doomed to die, and die by water. It was but a small worm 
that wilted Jonah's gourd. This is the canker that will in 
the end eat out your branch life, and to hasten this desirable 
end, I note a few facts. 



168 casket's book. 

It was in your way when you began. How were you to 
get this divine element into your human organization — into 
your branch ? You realized that it was an utter impossi- 
bility and had sense enough left not to try. What, then, 
can we do? As we can't baptize into our branch, we will 
baptize into the church of Christ. If you had not taken 
away the key of knowledge from the people ; if you had not 
steeped their senses in the sparkling wine-cup, old Rome, 
and made them beastly drunk, this first step you took would 
have killed you and your branch so dead that nothing less 
than resurrection power could cause you to live again, and 
even that could impart no life to your branch. By that act 
you make the church one thing and your branch another. 
The person baptized is in the church of Christ, but not in 
your branch. You caused the baptized to enter the church 
through the door ; by what door did they enter your branch ? 
This is your first trouble, and but the beginning of your 
troubles. Like the poor Irishman, who said his were as bad 
at first as they could be, and got worse all the time. The 
second is, you had no right to baptize any person into any 
kingdom, church, or institution having the shadow of divinity 
connected with it. You are estopped by your false doctrine 
in regard to the authority to baptize — that it can only be 
done by an official, and we are the officials. Who made you 
such? Had they the right? You answer. No ! Then your 
right is not worth discussing. Then no one has been put 
into the church by you. If your doctrine be true, and you 
are not in yourself, you deny the birthright. You don't 
claim the succession right ; by what right, in the name of 
all that is sacred or sensible, did you do it, or pretend to 
do it ? And when you pretended to baptize, — you first made 
it non-essential ; second, killed the design ; third, got the 
wrong subject; fourth, the wrong action. No design, 



THE CHURCH. 169 

wrong subject, wrong action, no administrator. You had 
no right to do it. Now, don't you feel ashamed of your- 
selves? Your next is, you had to fix up the pitiful myth of 
an invisible church in this world, into which you baptized 
them, for it was more than even your impudence could 
stand to baptize into the visible kingdom of Christ, and then 
turn round and take out of Christ's church into your 
branch. You conjured up the invisible, so that when they 
went into your branch they could carry it with them and no 
one ever miss it, as they had never seen it, and had it not been 
for you it never would have been thought of. And had it 
not been for that non-essential command, you would not have 
been compelled to fix it up, and would have had one less 
great sin to answer for. But you are not through yet; 
these are the beginnings of your troubles. God-making was 
the sin of heathendom ; monstrosity- making the sin of Rome. 
Rome made two heads and one body ; you made two bodies 
and one head, or, using another Scriptural figure, the Cath- 
olic Church is the bride of two husbands. That is, perhaps, 
why John calls her a harlot. You, in making an invisible 
bride, flaunt the accursed banner of Mormon polygamy in 
the face of Jesus Christ and make him the husband of two 
brides, the head of two bodies. This a viler sin than that 
committed by Rome. Her dogma makes the sin her own ; 
yours makes it Christ's. 

The Scriptures say nothing about any such a monstrosity. 
I confess that there is a considerable sprinkling of the invis- 
ible. It has a set of invisible pastors, elders, deacons, etc. 
No one has charge of it. No one seems to take any interest 
in it nor care anything about it, or have any use for it, after 
they baptize into it. They turn the church, and all that are 
in it, out to grass. I most heartily wish that some of those 
that made it would devote a little of their precious time to 



170 casket's book. 

it. It needs looking after badly. Hundreds that you say 
you baptized into it are Deists, drunkards, liars, and thieves, 
and no one to turn them out. This is one church, at least, 
that no one can get out of by sinning. The only way to get 
out is to get religion and go into a branch. I am not in- 
formed as to whether you take it into the branch with you 
or remain in it, and are a member of two churches, or of 
one church and a branch ? 

Your next is that you make the church as bad as a den of 
thieves — a moral pest-house ; not including the sinless babes 
you profess to baptize into it. What are its component 
parts? What its membership? Thieves, liars, drunkards. 
Deists, Atheists, adulterers, whoremongers, all sorts of 
shameful abortions of corrupt humanity. As soon as any 
of them get religion, then you gobble them up and put them 
in a branch. They were pure enough with all their sins and 
crimes to be in the Church of Christ, but not pure enough to 
get into our branch. None but the regenerate can come into 
our branch. But what of the poor Church of the blessed 
Lord? Not a regenerate person in it; made up of totally 
depraved babies and adults, trying, many of them, to add 
to their own total depravity, and make it more than total. 
And into this seething, hissing, boiling cauldron of sin ycu 
ask me to let you baptize my babe, and in that church it 
must remain until it gets old enough to get religion and be 
taken into a branch, among decent people. And all those 
vile characters mentioned are its brethren and sisters, and 
in it you have left your own babe. Shame on you ! 

Thisbrings me to another trouble, this non-essential, — this 
command to be baptized, has brought upon you. It has 
caused a separation from your darling little ones. I was de- 
bating with one of your invisible baby-sprinkling " D.D.'s." 
He taunted me, and charged me with selfishness, in that I 



THE CHURCH. 171 

went into the fold and left my babe out in the wilderness ; 
that my system, as he called it, took in the sheep and left 
all the poor little bleating lambs to be devoured by wolves. 
He grew grandly eloquent, pumped up a few tears, which 
set the tear pumps of some of his sympathetic sisters to 
work, and quite a sensation was created against me. I had 
to plead guilty, for that was just ; so had to own up, plead 
extenuating facts and circumstances, and throw myself on 
the mercy of the court, which I did, stating the facts, that 
my creed taught me that I was a sinner and needed pardon ; 
that pardon was offered to me in the kingdom of Christ, and 
not in the devil's kingdom. I was therefore baptized into 
the kingdom. It further taught me that my babe was sin- 
less ; had no sins to pardon ; that of such is the kingdom 
of heaven. There was no reason why it should be brought 
where pardon is sought, promised, and obtained, until it de- 
sired and needed pardon. I then asked my opponent, and 
all his people, if they had done any better when he and they 
had their infants put into the fold, was the fold not as cor- 
rupt, as bad as the wilderness ? What was gained by taking 
the little child out of the world and placing it in such a 
church? The world is bad enough; the church equally as 
bad ; you wronged it by bringing it into church relations 
with any such a filthy and corrupt crowd, and must have 
recognized the fact yourselves by refusing to stay with it. 
You, your wife, and babe, are put in the same day ; and 
then what do you do ? Why, you take your wife and sneak 
off into a branch, and leave your babe among the brutish 
men and women that have grown up in what ought to be 
called the devil's church, instead of Christ's. 

After the performance of this wonderful feat of theolog- 
ical legerdemain — of making one invisibility out of four 
visibilities — the subject is visible, the administrator is visi- 



172 casket's book. 

ble, the action is visible, and the element visible. With these 
four visibilities you and wife and babe get into an invis- 
ibility ; but you do not tarry long. Why did you not take 
your babe with you ? You have done the same thing that 
you accuse me of doing. I leave my sinless babe in the 
world where God has placed it, willing to trust it in his 
hands ; you leave your totally depraved one in as bad a 
place. I give reasons for what I did, you give none. If 
you would put your babe, and others, into your branch, I 
would have had nothing to say against it. The babe is yours 
and the branch is yotirs. The action by which you pretend 
to put it in is yours. Neither the good Lord nor I had any- 
thing to do with the whole programme. It is nobody's busi- 
ness what you put into it. But when you claim to put them 
into the church, then I have a right to protest against your 
putting in babies, pigs, or puppies.- I am in there, and can't 
slip off into a branch. I would file no complaint if j^our 
creed meant what you preach about the invisible church, for 
I am not in it. When it makes you ask the Lord to receive 
the babe, or the adult, into his church, and make them living 
members of the same, I apprehend it is not the invisible 
about which you are praying. I would not so seriously 
object to your putting them into the visible church if thay 
would remain babies, but thej^ won't; or, if after they get 
religion, you would let them remain, it would be bearable. 
We would then have a compound that would save the thing 
from everlasting shame, disgrace, and contempt. We would 
have a mixture of good, bad, and — babies. But you won't 
let them stay ; as soon as they get good you take them into 
a branch and leave me with the bad and the babies. I can't 
hold social intercourse with the babies, nor with the bad. I 
am left in a pitiable fix, am I not? Suppose all were to let 
you put their babies in as fast as they were born, when the 



THE CHURCH. 173 

present generation passed away, then there would be no 
world. You would simply turn the world into the church ; 
you have done all you can to ruin the church in order to 
save your branches; and all that prevents success is that 
even your own drilled cohorts are learning too much from 
us and others to let you do it. 

I have pointed out some of the troubles into which you 
plunged yourselves in evading that little non-essential com- 
mand. Should you desire any more, please let me know, 
and they shall be forthcoming. 

I must now leave you and your branch business and attend 
to something more important — to the church. And, first, 
what is it? It is a kingdom, a sheepfold, a body, a temple, 
a household, a bride. What and who is the bride? All who 
have been married to Christ. Who are the sheep? All that 
hear his voice and follow him. What are the materials out 
of which the temple is builded? Lively stones I Who com- 
pose the kingdom? Loyal subjects. When do we become 
subjects? When do we become a portion of the temple? 
When we are laid on the foundation ; subjects, when we take 
the oath of allegiance. When do we become the sheepfold? 
When we follow him. What is the first step we take in fol- 
lowing him? Baptism into him. But, says one, Faith is the 
first step, and repentance the second, and baptism the third. 
Faith and repentance are mental and moral actions. They 
are but parts of the man, they are not the we. Baptism is 
the first act the ive do. Sheep follow ; we follow. It would 
be a nice caricature of figurative language to make the Great 
Teacher make the faith the sheep had in his voice, the fol- 
lowing. The sheep had better sense than the theologian. 
When do we get into the kingdom, and how? When we are 
born into it. How ? By water and spirit. Except a man 
be born of water and spirit he can not enter it ; so taught 



174 caskey's book. 

our blessed Lord. And not one word about organization. 
The church is one thing, organization another! Organiza- 
tion is done by the church ; for the benefit of the church. 
All baptized believers are the church. If infant sprinkling 
is Scriptural, they are in the church. I would not convey 
the idea that all that are in will be saved in heaven ; nor all 
that are out will be lost. I am not writing about heaven, 
but the church. Let us distinguish between things that 
differ, and all the mist and fog of ages disappears. 

There is a Scriptural process of becoming a Christian, of 
getting into the church, and a Scriptural way of organizing 
the church. Suppose a member Scripturally enters the 
church and does as they all admit they have done ; fix up an 
unscriptural organization, they committed a sin, but are still- 
the church. Suppose I baptize twenty persons where there 
is no church, what are they ? The church. When did they 
become the church? As soon as born. When were they 
born? When they were baptized. What is their first duty? 
To congregate, or, as an apostle says, assemble themselves 
together to sing, pray, exhort, and keep the day and the 
feast in memory of dying love and rising power. And thus 
they meet and worship for months and years, until some 
among them are qualified to fill the offices mentioned in the 
Scriptures. What are they? The church. What came to- 
gether? The church. Congregating did not make them the 
church. The church made the congregation. 

Suppose they never organize, are they any the less the 
church? Happy would it have been for us and the cause we 
love if one-half of tbe congregations were not organized 
yet. In process of time, brethren are qualified for the 
offices of elders and deacons. Bro. Burnett, of The Mes- 
senger^ pays them an evangelic visit, and I read in his paper 
that he organized the church, and I say well done, Bro. 



THE CHURCH. 175 

Burnett. 1 read on, and find this remarkable specimen of 
putting a figure on all fours. Nothing could have pumped 
out of his teeming brain this self-stultifying thought, except 
that terrible piece of machinery called organization, over 
which he and D. B. Ray had been fighting. Here is his 
statement: " The bricks and timber are not the building, or 
house, till brought together and put into the house." I say, 
there is not a word of truth in it, when applied to Christ's 
building. When were these bricks, as you call them, builded 
together for a habitation of God through the Spirit? Was 
it when you organized them ? Was it when they congregated ? 
I answer. No. When? It was when they were laid on the 
corner-stone. These bricks and this timber are the building, 
if they had never seen each other's faces, or the faces of 
any organization. Whenever a man, be he Baptist or Chris- 
tian, gets this idea of organization in his head, it has a 
peculiar knack of driving out all common or uncommon 
sense. Look at another specimen of its influence over the 
minds of both these champions. They both speak of Chris- 
tians in Babylon. If Christians, then they are the church, 
in the wrong pew. Now, for Ray to ask the church to 
come out of Babylon and join the church. Even Ray, with 
all his cheek, could not do that. Burnett was in the same 
boat. Hence, they cover up by using the word Christian, 
as though Christians were one thing and the church another. 
Is it not remarkable that, during that protracted controversy, 
neither defined the thing at issue? There must have been a 
reason for this, and they both must have seen it, or I have 
overestimated their ability. If Ray defines it, then he de- 
fines Burnett in. If Burnett defines it, and how we get into 
it, he defines Ray in. Then down tumbles the whole fabric 
of organization entering into the church, and the blooodless 
battle would have ended, as the Irishman says, before it 



176 casket's book. 

began. I now return to the church of twenty, for the pur- 
pose of bringing out another phase of the subject. Rev. B. 
baptizes a man; what is he? The moment he is raised out 
of the water he is a member of the church, as much so as 
any, and all the baptized. When is he in the kingdom of 
Christ: At night he comes up to take membership with this 
local worshiping assembly. They receive him by giving the 
right hand of fellowship. What do they give him, church 
membership ? Nonsense ; Jesus gave him that. He gets 
drunk the next day, and won't acknowledge the obligation. 
They withdraw from him. Withdraw what? Just what they 
gave, their fellowship. Where do they leave him? Pre- 
cisely where they found him, in the kingdom. There he will 
live, die, and be raised from the dead. And the angel 
reapers will gather him out of the kingdom with all things 
that offend. In the very nature of things and the nature of 
organization it could not be otherwise. All congregations 
had to exist without organization until brethren could qualify 
to fill the offices. All were novices, and the apostle forbade 
the setting apart of such. 

This sermon is growing too long to enter upon the -proof, 
but to Bible readers it is not necessary. One other thought, 
and I am done with the subject. In debating with a Baptist 
preacher on this subject, he admitted, as sensible Baptists 
do, that born of water and spirit is baptism in John iii. 
Said I, you take a candidate out ten steps into the stream 
and baptize him ; your organization is standing on the bank 
singing, perhaps, 

" 'Tis a point I long to know.*' 

There is just ten steps between him and your organization. 
There is not the breadth of a hair between him and Christ's 
kingdom. He is in it before you could give him the hand 



THE CHURCH. 177 

of fellowship. Therefore, the church is one thing, your 
organization another. Again, a man in this community 
wants to go to the Legislature. He knows that without the 
Baptist vote his case is hopeless. Being an atheist, he pro- 
fesses religion, tells an experience, is baptized, received into 
fellowship, is elected, goes to Austin, gets drunk, returns 
home, and now, as pastor, you interview him. " Well,'* he 
says, " I sold you out cheap ; all that I told the church was 
false ; I was an atheist, and am yet. ' ' Was he baptized into 
the church? You know he was not; for you say with us, 
no faith, no baptism. He was in your organization ; there- 
fore, your organization is not the church. If that don't 
settle the question beyond a reasonable doubt, it is because 
the writer, who defined man to be a reasoning animal, badly 
slandered him. Perhaps I ought to apologize to the reader 
for the length of this, but I have no room left. 

12 




CHAPTEE XIY. 

COMMEMORATIVE DAYS AND INSTITUTIONS. 

iHIS cla,ss of institutions has occupied a prominent 

* place in the religions of all ages, whether divine or 

human. They are distinguishable from the moral 

^^3 and the positive in but one particular. The moral 
are right in themselves — are eternal, immutable ; not sub- 
ject to repeal, suspension, or abrogation. They are com- 
manded because they are right — right in the nature of 
things — at all times and in all places. Like God, their 
author, they are unchangeable. Positive commands are 
right — not inherently, not in the nature of things, but right 
because commanded, and for no other reason. They have 
no rationality, no philosophy ; are subject to repeal or abro- 
gation at the will of their author. Moral commandments 
originate in right; positive in God. A wooden serpent 
would have done as well as a brass one ; one dip in Jordan 
as well as seven ; the blowing of the breath of Israelites as 
well as trumpets ; sprinkling as well as immersion. 

Commemorative days and institutions, while not inhe- 
rently right, like the moral, have both the authority of 
their author and of philosophy; and in this feature they 
differ from the positive. 

Their design is the perpetuity of important events ; they 

may be and have been changed in the divine economy. 

When a more important event transpires than the one being 

commemorated, the old is set aside and the new inaugurated. 

(178) 



COMMEMORATIVE DAYS AND INSTITUTIONS. 179 

Another design is, to place the author in the minds and 
hearts of all that observe the day, or the institution. They 
are the called and sent preachers of him who institutes 
them. They are his witnesses, and though dumb, yet more 
eloquent than silver-tongued orator, or flashing pen of ready 
writer. They are dumb, unless those that love them for their 
author's sake open their mouths and let them tell their story. 

This class of institutions is less understood, less es- 
teemed, less observed, and more maimed and perverted than 
any ofhers connected with our holy religion. Hence this 
humble effort to rescue them from their neglect and oblivion. 
The non-observance of them, and the trampling of them under 
unhallowed feet, shows either a want of knowledge of their 
value or a culpable insensibility and indifference to sacred 
interests. Nations have their day and institutions. We as 
Americans have ours. Perhaps, by noticing our commemo- 
rative day, we may collect all the elements that enter into 
and constitute such days and institution, whether sacred or 
profane. 

We have first, the author or authors ; second, the design ; 
third, the day itself ; fourth, how it is to be kept ; and fifth, 
who are to keep it. These are all important ; each is an 
essential characteristic ; if any one is lost sight of or ignored 
the whole is vitiated. The authors of our day were the Rev- 
olutionary fathers ; its design to perpetuate the cost of 
freedom. To enshrine afresh in our hearts our heroic 
fathers and their mighty deeds. The time is the 4th day of 
July ; the manner of keeping it by assembling together, 
reading the Declaration of Independence, talking over the 
days and events which tried mens' souls, and recounting the 
glorious results of that sublime event. The people to whom 
it was given were Americans by birth or adoption. The loss 
of love for the day indicates the decadence of the govern- 



180 casket's book. 

ment, or of the institution to which it belongs. Indifference 
is the first canker worm that begins to gnaw at the nation's 
heart, and at the heart of the church. We as a people 
reaped a bitter harvest of poverty, tears, blood, and death 
by losing our love for the day and the truth it proclaims. 
Folly led us in a futile effort to cut loose from the old day 
and to inaugurate a new one ! And had we succeeded, the 
4th of July, to us and our posterity, would have been dead. 
We would have commemorated a new day in honor of the 
birth of a new nation. Whether we did right or wrong, is 
not now the question. We could not settle that question if 
we would. Whether good or evil will evolve from our fail- 
ure, no mind can yet declare ; it has to be adjourned to the 
day of final adjudication, when all rights and wrongs will be 
seen and clearly read in the light of God. That a terrible 
wrong was done by one side or the other, none will deny. 
If wrong, no one has more to answer for than the writer ; 
for he threw into the great struggle for the destruction of 
th-e day all that he had of time, talent, heart, purse, and 
influence. He hated the day, and wished that it had never 
seen the light ; that we had never thrown off the British 
yoke. He spent four years away from loved wife and chil- 
dren, in hospitals among the sick, the wounded, the dying, 
and the dead. Occasionally, to break the monotony, he went 
on the battle-field and took part in the conflict. My brethren 
of the North, both national and religious, I thought then, 
and think now, became wildly fanatical on the subject of 
slavery, making it not only a political but a moral evil — 
the sin of sins ! It being a national evil, and they being a 
part of the nation, and feeling that they were pai'ticeps 
criminis with us in the sin, their consciences compelled them 
to set to work to destroy slavery. I thought they were sin- 
cere, respected their conscientious scruples, and went to 



COMMEMORATIVE DATS AND INSTITUTIONS. 181 

work with others to relieve them of all responsibility by 
taking ourselves and institution out of the nation. To my 
astonishment, they suddenly changed front, and set about 
whipping us and our slaves back into the Union. For two 
years and more we slew one another. Finding that seces- 
sioni^s could not be whipped back with their slaves, they 
decided to divide and conquer — which they did. 

I confess I do not understand it yet — I believed I was 
right. Now I will tell you what it cost me to trample on 
that grand old commemorative day, and I apprehend that 
I got off with a lighter penalty than will those who have 
been trampling on and destroying Christ's days and institu- 
tions. Passing by the four years of trial, anxiety, and dan- 
ger, it happened that, with the exception of four thousand 
dollars in real estate, (which I sold for Confederate money 
at par!) all I had was in slaves, ajid whem the war closed 
the result of a half century of patient toil was all in Confed- 
erate money and bonds ! I have indulged in these thoughts 
of the past not for the purpose of calling up any bitter 
memories of the past : I am fully reconstructed ! 

When my brethren of the North poured their sympathies, 
their money, and their men into our epidemic-smitten homes ; 
when he that had worn the blue sat by the dying couch of 
him who wore the gray, and from his brow wiped the damp 
dews of death — the last feeling of bitterness left my heart. 
I now love my whole country — the old flag and the old day ! 
Palsied be the hand that would pluck one star from the ban- 
ner that floats proudly over us, and the tongues that would 
utter intentionally one word to alienate hearts from each 
other, or the lips that would blow the fast dying embers into 
flames ! I will never try to make another commemorative day, 
but will spend my few remaining days in an earnest effort for 



182 casket's book. 

the full restoration of the days and institutions of the Divine 
Son of Mary ! ! 

Taking up the days and institutions of the Father and the 
Son, from which we wandered so far, the first commemora- 
tive day carries us back to the infancy of time, " In six 
days God made the heavens and the earth, and rested on the 
seventh and hallowed it." The Bible passes in silence over 
the day until God by the hand of Moses had delivered His 
people from bondage. In the wilderness the children of 
Israel are commanded to keep it, because it was the rest day 
of God. When kept for this reason alone it placed but one 
attribute of His nature before their minds, and that was His 
power ; whether it was wise or foolish to create depended on 
what He would do with it. No man ever has known, or ever 
will know, whether it was wise or foolish, unless he learn it 
from the Bible. The second reason given for its observance 
by its author was in commemoration of their own rest from 
Egyptian labor, and this brought two other of His attributes 
to their minds and hearts — His wisdom manifested in the 
means used for their deliverance, and His goodness in deliv- 
ering them. 

Who is the author of the day ? God. 

What its design ? To place Himself in their hearts. When 
they thought of His rest, they could not separate His rest 
and that from which He rested, and thus He enshrined Him- 
self. When they thought of their rest they thought of that 
from which they rested, and of Him who gave them rest. 
The time was the seventh day. The manner of keeping it 
was — rest. It was to be kept by the Jews, as -a nation, and 
by thos-e connected with them, either as proselytes to Judaism 
or as sojourners and strangers dwelling within their gates. 
It was to hold until supplanted by a new day ; until a more 



COMMEMORAXn^E DAYS AND INSTITUTIONS. 183 

important event occurred in the world than creation. When 
that occurred the Sabbath was to fade away, with all things 
else pertaining to the law. The fourth command was nailed 
to the cross! The fourth commandment of the Decalogue, 
on which all orthodoxy rely to enforce their Sabbath laws, 
as they call them, has been dead and buried more than eight- 
een hundred years. The moral precepts were not nailed to 
cross, not repealed ; were not against us ; were not among 
the carnal ordinances that were taken out of the way. I add 
a few other thoughts for the benefit of some of my own 
brethren who, I think, have gone to an extreme nearly as 
fatal as they who hold on to the fourth commandment. They 
contend for a repeal, a setting aside of the ten — the whole 
law that was engraved on tables of stone, and their re-enact- 
ment by Christ and His Apostles. 

The first objection to this is, the whole were eternally 
right, and enacted into law because they were right ; and to 
suspend one of them would be an eternal wrong. My 
second is, that it would inaugurate a reign of anarchy. 
There was of necessity an interregnum between the repeal 
and the re-enactment. During that time there was no law. 
The command, " Thou shalt not steal," is suspended. Dur- 
ing the time I steal a million ; am arraigned and tried in the 
court of heaven. On the charge I plead that I have com- 
mitted no offense, no sin ! Sin is a transgression of law — 
and there was no law. The plea would hold good in any 
court in heaven, as upon the earth, where justice presided. 

Again, it belittles the law-maker ; makes him perpetrate 
an act of unmitigated folly; one not found on history's 
pages as committed by any law making power known to the 
world. 

When law-makers change constitutions, or codify, or 
change laws, they do not go through the farce of repealing 



184 casket's book. 

and re-enacting. Whatever in the old they decide to con- 
tinue, they transfer. It lives in the old in all its vitality 
and force until incorporated in the new. Whatever they 
decide not to perpetuate is repealed. After its incorpora- 
tion, it derives its authority from the new, and not the old. 
The moral precepts, therefore, were held in the old until 
engrafted into the new. And in regard to that class of pre- 
cepts we might go a step further and say that their power is 
inherent in themselves. God gave them his sanction in the 
old constitution and Jesus in the new. 

I think this will suffice to set aside this new-fangled inter- 
pretation of divine law. No use, my brethren, to get 
scared at Babylon, run past Jerusalem, and knock out j^our 
brains against the down-fallen walls of Jericho ! You can 
get rid of the fourth commandment without killing the nine 
and leaving the world lawless — the interregnum during 
which Jesus kept the last Sabbath by resting in the grave 
after his life's sorrowing work was done. We notice one 
more Jewish day because it gives us a better opportunity to 
measure the mighty power with which God has clothed his 
commemorative institutions. The Pentecost was to the Jews 
what the fourth of July is to us. It placed afresh in their 
hearts annually the birth of their grand nationality, of which 
God was the author. On that day they, by faith, gathered 
around the mount — the place of its birth; they heard the 
thunders utter their terrible voices ; saw the awful sheeted 
lightning's flash; heard again the voice of God and the 
sounding trump which filled the hearts of their fathers with 
fear and prostrated them in the sands around the mount. 
Again they renewed their oft repeated and oft broken pledge 
which their fathers made to God, that they would be willing 
and obedient. Let us stand, by faith, on the temple's 
height a few days preceding the Pentecost, and we behold 



COMMEMORATIVE DAYS AND INSTITUTIONS. 185 

vast multitudes from all nationalities under heaven, pouring 
into their capital — dust covered, foot sore, travel soiled — 
a host of weary pilgrims coming from afar. We now inquire 
what was the power that went out and gathered itself into all 
hearts, that turned the thousands towards Jerusalem? It 
was the power of a commemorative day. The great God 
held in his grasp through this day, the mind, heart, and body 
of this grand old nation. There are many other days com- 
memorating other events, but these are sufficient to answer 
our present purpose ; and this brings us to the institutions of 
Christianity. They are three in number. In the language 
of Ashdod and modern orthodoxy they are called ' ' sacra- 
ments " — the Lord's Day, Christian Baptism, and the 
Lord's Supper. At the very threshold of the subject we 
are met with one of the strangest phenomena that can be 
found in all the world of thought, dreams, or fancies. The 
whole religious world, the Christian Church excepted, has 
perverted these days and institutions. And I do not think 
that we ourselves as a people more than half appreciate 
them. The Adventists and the Sabbatarian Baptist keep 
the wrong day, and for a wrong reason. The Son of God 
has nothing more to do with their day than with our fourth of 
July. All the others are keeping it after their own fashion ; 
they have the right day, but the wrong reason. All they • 
have of Christ is simply the day. They do not keep it as 
he directs, nor for the purpose for which it was given. 
They do not keep it by his authority. They give no reason 
from him or his law why they keep it at all. Nothing said 
iu the New Testament in regard to his day is ever quoted. 
They will not even call it by either of the names given to it, 
"The Lord's Day," or "The First Day of the Week." 
They do not allow him to legislate for his own day and his 
own household. He is most completely ignored, dethroned, 



186 casket's book. 

and driven out; the voice from Calvary is completely silenced 
by the crashing thunder from Sinai's clouded summit. 
Moses, and not Jesus, legislates for them. Law, not Gos- 
pel, governs them in regard to this holy day. They want 
their people to observe it with great reverence ; they want 
legislators to enact laws for its observance. What reason do 
they give, where get their authority? At the mount, and 
through Moses. The fourth commandment. Remember the 
Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Why? Because God rested 
on the seventh day. When kept for this reason, who gets 
into your darkened hearts and blinded minds ? Surely not 
Christ, but God the Creator. And how many of his attri- 
butes does he bring with him ? His power only. Never in 
all the lives of all the orthodox preachers, Adventists, and 
Saturday-keeping Baptists, have they once given the second 
reason why the Jews should keep it. "This," says God, 
' ' shall be to you a memorial day, and to your generations 
forever, because on this day I brought you up out of the 
land of 'Egypt.*' A Gentile church keeping a day for that 
reason, and the wrong day at that, certainly reaches the 
climax of the ludicrous. If you do not keep it for both 
these reasons, then you have very devoutly broken your 
Holy Sabbath. To see both the Catholic and Protestant 
religious world keeping the first day of the week because an 
important event took place on the seventh, is surely a sight 
that would cause angels in heaven to weep, if tears were 
ever shed in that happy place ? How this perversion ever 
crept in, is beyond my comprehension. I fully understand 
why these people never quote Acts xx : 7 : " And when the 
disciples came together on the first day of the week to break 
bread." This would kill their quarterly communion. I 
also understand how "quarterly communion" came into 
practice. It grew out of the first great theft perpetrated 



COMMEMORATIVE DAYS AND INSTITUTIONS. 187 

by the clergy on God's people, when they stole from the 
family the right to preach and baptize. The metropolitan 
preacher soon built up a number of congregations in the 
suburbs of his city. Instead of his teaching the churches 
to select from among themselves men of good report for the 
discharge of the duties of elders and deacons, thus making 
them self-sustaining and Independent of him, the lust of 
power got the better of his poor nature, and he held on to 
them, and taught them that he alone, or such as he, could 
administer the Lord's Supper. 

When His churches increased to four, then, as a matter of 
course, they could only break bread once a month. When 
they increased to twelve, once a quarter, since he could not 
be with them except monthly or quarterly, as the case might 
be. But what I do not understand, is the fact that when 
churches have those present who they admit have the right 
to break bread, they hold on to the old custom of quarterly 
communion, although the cause which gave it birth has 
passed away. I do not, and never expect to, understand 
why they keep the first day of the week, because God rested 
on the seventh. If there are any two days that differ in all 
the essentials of this class of days, these two days mark 
clearly that difference ; they touch at no angle — God is the 
author of the first ; Christ of the second. The design of the 
first was to enshrine the Creator in the hearts of His nation — 
the Jews ; the second, to place Christ in the hearts of His 
people. The first was a day of rest ; the second of works. 
Jesus worked himself up from among the dead ! The first 
was from Sinai; the second, from Calvary. The first be- 
longed to the Jewish, the second to the Christian, dispensa- 
tion ; the first to the law, the second to the Gospel. The 
first was nailed to the cross, and buried to stay in the 
grave ; the second came from the cross and the grave. The 



188 casket's book. 

first was the seventh day; the second, the first day of the 
week. The first was kept for two reasons ; the second for 
one. Christians keep the Lord's day in memory of the res- 
urrection of Christ, and of their redemption from the grave. 
There must be a reason for this most strange and unprece- 
dented practice of the churches. Can it be alone through 
their ignorance and confusion? May it not in part grow out 
of the abuse of the supper ? If they return to the primitive 
practice and break bread on each first day of the week, will 
not church and world desire to know the reason for the in- 
vidious comparison drawn between death and resurrection — 
keeping the day of the resurrection once a week and 
commemorating the Lamb of God's death once in three 
months ! ! 




CHAPTEK XV. 

COMMEMORATIVE INSTITUTIONS. 



INHERE seems to be an idea prevalent in the religious 
" world that so we keep some one day it does not matter 



what day it be. "This is based upon a misunderstand- 
^^ ing of Paul' s instructions to the brethren, in regard to 
the Jewish fast days and feast days, which they esteemed very 
important, and wished the Gentiles to observe them. They 
were days not commanded. No one was either the better for 
keeping or the worse for disregarding them. But when a day 
is commanded there is no choice or question ; they must be 
observed. This is applicable to other commandments as well 
as to the class now under consideration. God commands us 
to join the church; but allows us to choose whether we will 
or not. And many go so far as to teach that He not only gave 
us the right to choose, but made several hundreds, embracing 
all sorts of doctrines — forms of government — names and 
practices — so that the most eccentric mind and fastidious 
taste can be suited. When a person joins he obeys God ; 
but when he chooses — whom does he obey? He is made 
simply an equal partner with God. He ought to know, that 
if he had sense enough to know how — he would have enough 
to know what, and God might have let him arrange both. 
God then might as well have left him to make the church and 
then join it. 

So of baptism — they say Christ commands the what^ and 
leaves to us the Jiow. And as the how is our part it more nearly 

(189) 



190 casket's book. 

concerns us, and assumes an importance more than the what — 
giving us that much the advantage in the transaction. If 
you could decide the how you could decide the what. It is 
time that this whole idea of choice on our part were aban- 
doned. After these remarks we return to the subject as 
stated in a former discourse. 

If you had the right reason and observed the day because 
Christ rose from the dead, then you would observe it as com- 
manded. Keeping it as j^ou do, for the reason contained in 
the law, you keep the wrong day. What would you think if 
any other people were to act as you do? You find the Ma- 
sonic world keeping a day in memory of a patron saint. Do 
they invariably celebrate the wrong day? The people of the 
United States to celebrate their national birth'by keeping the 
first instead of the fourth day of July ! And to make their 
case bad as yours, they keep it because George III. was born 
on that day ! or signed the stamp act on that day ! What in- 
comprehensible folly and impropriety! From the evident 
nature of these institutions, and from a close observation of 
their practical influence upon the minds, hearts, and lives of 
Christians, I am led to the conclusion that there is in them 
more of God's attributes and power, more of Christ, than in 
all things else taught us in the Bible. The great moral, 
purifying attributes and powers are manifested in these in- 
stitutions. His wisdom, goodness, love and power, as re- 
vealed in death and resurrection, are brought in their full, 
flowing tide into our hearts by their intelligent and earnest 
observance. They are the expression of the great powers 
by which all worlds are controlled — the mental, moral, and 
physical ; the mind, or wisdom of God as manifested in the 
plan; His love, in the manner employed — the death of His 
Son ; His physical power — in raising him from the dead ! 
These we are taught to remember on the First Day of the 



COMMEMORATIVE INSTITUTIONS. 191 

week. God has decided that they are needful to our spirit- 
ual growth and advancement in the divine life. We may 
decide, as we foolishly do in regard to many other things, 
that we can grow without them ; but Paul says their non-use 
brought sickness and sleep in his day ! I have known pro- 
fessed Christians to grow cold and indifferent — lose all 
interest in religion — and finally apostatize, from neglect of 
the commemorative institutions, in the midst of the best 
songs that mortal lips could sing — under the most fervent 
prayers human hearts could offer, and under the best 
preaching that could be done by uninspired men, with all the 
social and religious influence of good men and women, many 
grew cold and fell away. But in an experience of forty- 
three years I have not known a single case of apostasy on 
the part of a disciple who met with the brethren anything 
like regularly, attended to the supper, and kept the day ! I 
therefore conclude that there is more in these to keep the 
mind directed into the right paths of thought and the heart 
filled with holy emotions, to keep the feet in the way ever- 
lasting, than in all other things combined. 

There is another reason why I regard them as vital parts 
of the divine system. These were the first class of wit- 
nesses struck down by the hand of the man of sin — the son 
of perdition. When his hand wields the dagger he strikes 
at a vital part, and strikes to kill ! When in his fiendish 
wisdom he determined to pull down the fabric builded by 
the Apostles, he was too wise to strike at the foundation ; 
but, like Sampson, felt for the pillars. He measured the 
influence of these institutions, and saw the power for good 
that was in them ; saw that so long as they were understood, 
appreciated, and kept, no power could draw the church far 
away in the wrong direction. He heard the eloquent voice 
of these witnesses as they proclaimed to church and world 



192 casket's book. 

the faith of him who opened their mouths and bade them 
speak of the Christ ! These are the three witnesses which 
John saw dead in the streets of Babylon, the city of mys- 
tery. These "witnesses," as John calls them — "sacra- 
ments," as Popish people call them — are the Lord's Day, 
the Lord's Supper, and Christian baptism. 

In order to silence the first, they piled six other holy days 
on top of it and smothered it. The second, by the ]3rocess 
called transubstantiation, they converted from a ^^sacra- 
ment ' ' into a sacrilege unprecedented on earth or in hell ! 
The Lord's Supper, to benefit the communicant, or to honor 
its author, must be understood and appreciated. Now, all 
the angels in heaven, all the men on the earth, aided by all 
the devils of the infernal, can not get hold even of the 
shadow of this priestly trick. He does not pretend to un- 
derstand himself how a wafer is a wafer and is not a wafer 
at one and the same time ; or how it looks like bread, 
smells and tastes and feels like bread, and yet is the 
divinity — soul, body, and blood of Christ. 

The third witness — Christian baptism — they did not kill 
outright, but reserved it for a worse fate. They laid it 
upon their dissecting table and, with their theological scalpel, 
split its tongue and made it say, "Sprinkle, pour, im- 
merse! " If they are right who hold it as anon-essential, in 
regard to action, subject, and design, then it would have 
been an act of mercy had they cut off its head instead of 
splitting its tongue ! What an immense quantity of time, 
talent, labor, stationery and ink could have been devoted to 
something essential. Add to this the wear and waste of mind ; 
then the division, envy, strife, alienation — separation of hus- 
bands and wives, parents and children into different par- 
ties — called branch churches ; the infidelity growing out of 
this unhallowed and senseless strife, and you have one 



COMMEMORATIVE INSTITUTIONS. 193 

phase of the curses that follow the impious, polluting hand 
of Rome. Add to this the loss of respect of one-half of 
the religious world for the other half, who have spent their 
time, money, work and feelings in trying to prove that two 
other ways of doing a thing are as well as one way ! Had 
they believed that either of the two ways was really (if pos- 
sible) more valid or better than the one universally admitted 
way, their labors would at least have commanded the re- 
spect of thinkers. As it stands, it can at best but excite a 
smile of pity for misdirected energies, wasted time, money 
squandered. I mention in this place a few phases of the 
subject that the masses may have an idea of what the feel- 
ings must be in the souls of profound thinkers when they 
contemplate this folly of those who have wasted so much 
that is beyond price in building up those useless shams. 
Take this single thought, which gives to the whole Ashdodi- 
cal structure all or whatever of vitality it has, three ways 
OF DOING ONE THING ! Try to mcasurc the depths of the 
silliness that gave birth to this idea ! an idea so monstrously 
absurd that no one entertaining it has ever tried to apply it 
to any other commandment found in all the Book. Two 
ways of believing, of repenting, of hoping, of loving, of 
eating bread in memory of His broken body — two ways of 
drinking wine in memory of shed blood ! ! Is it not the 
wonder of wonders that this simple commandment, given by 
the Great Head of the church, and illustrated by His own 
action how performed, should have been singled out and put 
through this theological machinery until every feature is dis- 
torted, every limb broken, and the whole body made a thing 
beyond recognition? 

Here another notable fact crops out in regard to all com- 
mands ever given. The thing done, or the mode of doing 
it, was an essential element, and the end was never reached 

13 



194 casket's book. 

until it was done ; and the manner or mode was prescribed 
and became as essential as the end itself, since the end could 
not be reached in any other way. While it is true that the 
end is never ascril^ed to the thing done, but to the faith by 
which it is done. This is bound to be, or it could not be by 
grace. And while it is in all cases ascribed to the faith 
prompting the action, it is as universally true, in all cases, 
that the end is never reached by faith without action ! 
without faith doing something, — never reached as soon as 
faith exists ! To the invariability of this rule I know of no 
exception. No curse ever fell on men or nations ; no bless- 
ing ever descended, either temporal or spiritual, until there 
was action on the part of the believer or unbeliever. 

We have thousands of detailed cases on record in which 
we can clearly see what they believed, how believed, when 
they believed, and when the end was attained ; when the 
curse fell or the blessing was imparted. In no case was it at 
the time of believing, but at the time of acting. Were I to 
offer proof of this, it would involve the transcription of a 
large portion of the Bible to these pages. 

As we trace out the curious things that have been devel- 
oped from the splitting of the tongue of this witness to the 
death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, we marvel at the 
number and character of the vagaries of the human mind. 

Out of this has grown the idea of choice, so destructive 
to obedience. But the full absurdity does not strike the 
mind in all its force, unless stated that the choice in its na- 
ture is of such a character as to dishonor him who makes it, 
and insult him to whom it is made. A choice might be 
offered between things having some resemblance without dis- 
honor to either party. But this particular choice to be 
"sprinkled,'* "poured," or "immersed," is not of that 
class. I can find some sort of a reason for all things else 



COMIHEMORATIVE INSTITUTIONS. 195 

that God has done ; at least, I can imagine a reason. But, 
I confess that after looking at this from all possible stand- 
points — after getting on the top side, and the bottom side, 
the inside and the outside, the right side and the wrong 
side, I give it up in despair ! And when I think of penning 
a serious argument against it, the ludicrous side turns up 
despite all sober resolutions. Just imagine, if you can, the 
look of surprise, curiosity, and contempt that would blend 
their expressions on the face of an accomplished and refined 
lady who had never heard or thought anything on the sub- 
ject. A called and sent preacher delivers his message from 
God to her that she must be baptized ; but in his unbounded 
liberality God gives her the choice, either to be sprinkled, or 
immersed, or poured. The first emotion is one of wounded 
pride, of insulted dignity. Does God take me for an idiot? 
Does he think that I am destitute of taste as well as sense ? 
And do you think that I can not distinguish between the 
pleasant and the unpleasant? Did he not know, when he 
gave this choice, that no one in the world would be so de- 
void of all sense and all taste as to take immersion, as 
matter of choice ? Indeed, a man or woman would have to 
sink below the instincts of any animal, bird, or even crawling 
worm, before consenting by choice to go into the watery 
burial, to reach any end that could be accomplished out of 
the water. There are four elements in the command : First, 
the subject; second, the administrator; third, the action ; 
and fourth, the design. That there should have been con- 
fusion in regard to what the witness really did mean on some 
one of these branches of the subject would not seem so pass- 
ing strange. But that there was confusion on all ; not only 
this, they separated on all four of the points, and got as far 
apart as possible, is wonderful. On the subject, they got 
as far apart as man and babe ; on the action, or mode, as 



196 casket's book. 

they call it, they went from a burial in water to a drop. I 
saw one act which they called baptism, where the preacher 
wet his finger and made the sign of the cross. On the ad- 
ministrator, they got as far apart as the inherited divine 
right of all Christians to the special official right of a few. 
On the design, they went from Catholic regeneration to 
nothing ! Now, look at it. No one can tell who is to do it ; 
on whom it is to be done ; what it is to be done for ; nor 
how it is to be done ; or whether to do it at all. Was ever 
confusion so completely confounded ? Had Pandora opened 
a box of curiosities, she need not have turned out but this 
one. 

Now, let us examine another phase of the subject, where 
insanity is not lurking along the path of thought we tread. 
They had a peculiar spite against this witness. Concerning 
the other two witnesses which testify to the death and res- 
urrection of Christ, there is not, and never has been, any 
disagreement in regard to what they say. 

There are three facts that constitute the Gospel; the 
death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ. These 
facts were first given in promise ; second, in type ; third, in 
prophecy; fourth, in fact; fifth, became historic; and, 
lastly, were made monumental or commemorative. Now, 
would it not be unaccountable if the first and last were 
monumentalized and the middle fact left out ? After they 
had come down the ages together, existing in the promise, 
set up in the types, interwoven in the prophecies, occurring 
in fact, at the manger, on the cross, at the grave, spread 
out on history's pages, — two of them crj^stalized, the other 
dropped out ! If there can be no witness that can utter the 
word burial^ then there is a defect in the whole plan, is as clear 
to the eye of common sense as the sun at noon ! Our faith 
in his broken body is shown by breaking bread ; in his 



COMMEMORATIVE INSTITUTIONS. 197 

blood, by wine ; in bis resurrection, by tbe Lord's day. 
But where is tbe witness for bis burial? Tbe Apostle says: 
" Show me your faith without works, and I will show you 
mine by my works." 

I say to tbe orthodox world, show me your faith in the 
death of Christ ! They readily respond by pointing to the 
Lord's table. Show me your faith in the resurrection of 
Him that died; and they point to the Lord's day — whose 
voice, more eloquent than angels' tongues, clearly sings out 
with each dawning morn of the first day of the week, 
Resurrection! See, as the golden god of day begins to 
scatter his beams from the lap of night, on which he leaned 
his head, mounting higher and growing brighter. So Christ, 
the sun of the moral world, comes forth, raises his head from 
the lap of the night of death, on which He slept — rising 
higher and shining brighter until the waves of light roll across 
the dark valley and shadow of death, and lave with glory 
the shores of the eternal world ! I ask them to show me their 
faith in the burial of Christ. Will not shame prevent them 
from pointing to sprinkling or pouring ? If baptism is not 
the witness, then what is it? If not in water, where is it? 
O tell us ! You say, ye called and sent, that God com- 
mitted these witnesses into your sacred keeping, because 
He could not trust them in the hands of His people. You 
stole them from the lawful owners, and had them in your 
keeping. As self-constituted administrators you are respon- 
sible to God, church and world. First, for theft of the 
estate, and second, for mal-administration. What have you 
done with those witnesses? Eome killed the first, as already 
shown; killed the second by transubstantiation. For these 
two murders Protestantism is not indictable; and yet, while 
she perhaps is not guilty of murder in the first degree under 
the first count in the indictment — on the Lord's day, she is 



198 casket's book. 

manifestly guilty of an aggravated assault with intent to 
kill, by driving Christ out of His day and putting his servant 
Moses in his place. With regard to the second, they allow 
it to open its mouth once in three months. In regard to the 
third, they 2ixq particeps criminis after the fact. After Rome 
did the act of splitting, they have kept the severed tongue 
wagging ever since. Had the divine right of all to adminis- 
ter these ordinances, or to permit these witnesses to 
testify, been recognized could they have fared worse ? Had 
they been handed over to vilest foes the presumption is they 
would have suddenly crushed the life out them all, and per- 
haps have given them a decent burial. Devils would have 
done the same, no doubt. This would have been much 
better than their present sad fate. As they are now used 
they add nothing to your religion. Cut off their heads and 
you wont be hurt. For with your sprinkling, quarterly com- 
munion, and keeping the first day, because God rested the 
seventh, you as completely destroy them as though you slew 
them. I believe your religion would be better if they were 
dead and buried. 

And now a word of explanation for the benefit of the 
captious. We are asked why the first and last witnesses 
are allowed to talk once a week, and the witness for his 
burial only once for all ? This grows out of the nature of 
the witness and the position it occupies. It is, as all admit, 
the dividing line between church and world. The line can 
only be crossed once. It is the door ; it can only be entered 
once. Of it we are born, having been begotten by the spirit,, 
We can be born but once. And " except a man be born of 
water and spirit he cannot enter the kingdom. ' ' 



CHAPTEE XYI. 

THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 

"And you that are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus 
shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming 
fire taking vengeance on them that linow not God, and obey not the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with ever- 
lasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the 
glory of his power." —II. Thes. i : 8, 9. 

N this discourse we shall follow the line of thought, 
prominent in a preceding discourse, on the power 
of a thought. We remember that, while preaching 
^ for the church at Memphis, Tenn,, in 1866 and 1867, 
our mind in its ramblings struck this path of thought; 
we spent days and weeks in hunting up those central, foun- 
dation, vitalizing, and life-imparting and life-sustaining ideas, 
and found no exception to the universal law — that all sys- 
tems are but the outgrowth of a single thought. I recollect 
that I delivered at that time some six discourses on the sub- 
ject. Hunting up the pivotal thought, and then following 
it in its varied ramifications and developments. No other 
line of thought ever gave to me more pleasure or profit. 
But acting very unwisely, as I now see, I kept no notes of 
the subjects, nor the manner of handling them, so that 
nearly all of them have faded away — are erased from the 
tablets of memory. I was so fearful of becoming a routin- 
ist, traveling in a circuit, accumulating a certain number of 
sermons (as the manner of some is), and preaching them at 

(199) 



200 casket's book. 

all times and in all places, thereby weakening the power of 
creating, as far as we can create, that I preserved nothing 
of preaching or writing, and now when I want some of my 
writings to put in my book I have to pay to have them tran- 
scribed from the old files of papers in which they were pub- 
lished. I have no memoranda; not even brief notes of 
anything I ever preached or wrote. I attached but little im- 
portance to what I wrote ; not enough to file away the paper 
on which it was written. I would not commend this course 
to others ; but I urge upon my preaching brethren to culti- 
vate their original powers of mind. Do not let them die ! 
Do your own thinking ! Don't go round as a blind horse 
on a tread-mill, and feed a church year after year on 
''faith," "repentance," "baptism"! Don't become the 
things that a large number of preachers of other churches 
are — mere echoes. They grind through a theological mill, 
from which they come forth labeled, marked, and branded, 
even to the sanctimonious clerical look, so that you can 
often tell what mill they came from, what denomination 
ground them through ; as much alike as so many pewter but- 
tons cast in the same moulds and strung on the same string. I 
have no apology to make for this long digression. I have only 
indulged in the conceded right of authors — to write what 
they please. 

I now, after the long ramble, return to the subject, and in- 
quire what is the design of punishment and why inflicted ; 
what end is to be attained; what purposes served; what 
object reached? In traveling the historic past to its origin, 
I got lost in the fog of the misty past. I failed to find 
the first man into whom the devil put the idea that 
now permeates the religious, and to some extent, the 
political world. That it is a purifying, reformatory 
power; that suffering, endured by the body, is good for 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. • 201 

the soul; that pain endured makes the heart better. 
Punishment has been used in all ages, both by God and 
man. The use of it is right ; the abuse of it is the most 
blighting and withering curse that has ever fallen on church 
or world. This abuse has grown out of the single thought 
that there is a purifying influence growing out of it ; that it 
is a great factor in reforming moral nature ; that is discip- 
linary, as applied to mind and heart. In looking at its 
practical development in heathen lands and heathen religion ; 
in our own land, and in the religions of Romans and Protest- 
ants, I reached the conclusion that hell was its birth place, and 
the devil its father, sin its mother, and that it is the foulest 
spawn from these prolific progenitors. If all the groans forced 
through pallid, grieving lips were concentrated into one it 
would be louder than the Apocalyptic seven thunders that 
will break in pieces- this old rock-framed earth of ours, and 
wake up the sleeping dead. If all the sighs from breaking 
hearts could be put in shape and size it would make a monster 
so huge and haggard that he would frighten his father, the 
devil, when he returned home. If all the bitter, burning, 
anguished tears that have been forced from eyes that would 
not have wept, since the first man tortured his flesh to purify 
his spirit, were gathered together, the navy of the world could 
be set afloat on the bosom of the sea of tears. Stand 
to-day by faith in heathen lands as far back as we can, where 
this thought first clothed itself in action and started on its 
fiendish mission, you see a man standing on a post, on one 
foot, the other drawn up at right angles ; another with right 
arm stretched out; there, and in this posture, they have 
stood through summer's burning heat and winter's chilling 
blasts. The arm as rigid as a limb growing from the trunk 
of a tree. Their poor he«-rts ought to be very pure. Iron 
spikes are forced through their quivering flesh ; even the 



202 casket's book. 

tongue has not escaped the torture. The sharp spike is 
forced through, and when nature begins to heal the ghastly 
wound the spike is turned and twisted round till the wound 
bleeds afresh from every pore. The rivalry grew fierce, and 
ingenuity exhaoisted its powers in inventing new and excruci- 
ating tortures. This idea became, and now is, the sole 
foundation thought on which two great theories of religion 
are builded — Roman Catholic penance, and universal salva- 
tion. The religion of Rome, which is two- thirds mythological 
cant, got the thought from heathen minds and heathen prac- 
tice, and on it erected her whole system of penances ; on it 
builded her smoke-begrimed, lightning-scathed and thunder- 
riven walls of purgatory. So that her fiendish spirit, after 
having tortured the body and soul of her deluded victims all 
along the path of life, extorting penance in fastings, absti- 
nences, pilgrimages, kneelings on marble slabs, repeating 
pater nosters and ave manas, counting beads, and going 
through the almost countless genuflections of her ritualism. 
When they have tortured the poor wretch into his grave they 
can torture his weeping wife and children out of a portion of 
their scanty income in buying masses for the soul of the 
departed dead, which their infernal system has sent to purga- 
tory ; teaching that if his sins are not bought off, they must be 
burned out — money or fire, is their motto. If the mass money 
is not forthcoming then the pope and priesthood can gloat 
over his agonies in the penal flames of purgatory till singed, 
scorched, and burned off. This gave birth to indulgences 
in the days of Luther, when Tetzel was peddler-in-chief 
of the wares of the church. Come, buy the right to sin and 
escape the penances the church has a right to impose as pun- 
ishment for sin committed. Money now vested in indul- 
gences by an edict of an'infallible Pup — beg pardon for that 
shp — Pope will save you from church censures, penalties, 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 203 

and pains ; will put out the fires of purgatory, and give you 
a free pass through the portals of glory. Suppose no one 
had believed in the purifying power of punishment, they 
would have snapped their fingers in the face of church pen- 
ances, and laughed at purgatory. The scoundrel would not 
have sold enough indulgences to pay his whisky bill ! The 
orthodox hell is another of the monstrosities of this thought. 
The Catholics fixed up that institution as a sort of second 
edition to purgatory. All who have not sinned beyond re- 
demptive and purifying power of punishment, when they 
have paid up all scores against them to the utmost farthing, 
will be released from durance vile and go up to glory. 
When they have a fair settlement made with Almighty God 
and squared accounts ; when for each sin they have paid a 
groan, for each crime a tear. I wonder why they never 
asked what use the great creditor had for such currency in 
heaven. What could he do with it ? Why exact it ? Is it 
possible for Jiim to get anything out of it except the delight 
of the angels and the saved in listening to their groans and 
watching their writhing forms, as on sulphurous, fiery bil- 
lows they are up-borne near to where the angels stand, and 
then with a blood-curdling shriek sent into the fiery gulf of 
indescribable woe. Some writer has said, as quoted in 
another lecture, that " the sweetest music that the redeemed 
and angels hear in heaven is tiie groans and shrieks of the 
damned in hell." I withheld his name then, and do so now ; 
he was a great man in the ranks of orthodoxy in his day, an 
LL.D. I hope the church to which he belonged will burn 
the book from which I quote and let his memory perish from 
the earth. I therefore withhold his name. It has stained 
and blighted the reputed character of the loving heavenly 
Father ; made Him so delight in human woe and pain as to 
cause him to desire, will, and decree the eternal sufferings of 



204 casket's book. 

a portion of Adam's race, withoilt a fault of theirs, and 
save the others without a virtue. * ' The decree was passed," 
the creed says, "without any foresight of faith or good 
works moving Him thereto." This runs a red-hot plowshare 
through the tender sympathies of human hearts, and drives 
them away from God. It has hardened the hearts of men 
and turned them into fiends, in human shape, and set them 
to work with faggot, fire, dungeon, rack, and wheel, to drive 
out what, to them, was evil thoughts and to instil the good ; 
to reform the mind and heart to a renunciation of heresy in 
faith and adopt the truth. Surely no one will contend for a 
moment that they punished only to force a recantation, 
when it was known to be a lie when uttered. Surely they 
did not want to fill their church with liars and hypocrites. 
This would be to make them devils incarnate. All that saves 
them, the great Geneva reformer included, from being mur- 
derers foul, is that they labored under this fatal delusion, 
that suffering purifies. It tramples under foot the purifying 
blood of Christ, and puts his sacrifice to open shame. For 
all you have to do is to punish enough and the end is 
attained. 

All purifying power is in God and Christ and the Holy 
Spirit. They purify our hearts by entering in and dwelling 
there ; and they enter by faith, not by punishment. 

Having enumerated some of the leading evils — the plants 
growing out from this prolific root — we are ready to get 
hold of the question and show that God never punished, and 
further, that punishment never was mflicted and never will 
be for any such purpose. It never was intended of itself to 
affect mind or heart. Never did and never will. Suppose 
that upon a fair, candid, impartial investigation of the sub- 
ject, without any creed to support, any dogma to sustain, 
any theory to underprop, the conclusion should be reached 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 205 

that such is the design, nature, or effect of punishment. 
Wont there be a crash of systems builded thereon ? If it is 
found to be irrational, unphilosophical, and unscriptural, 
then Catholic penance and purgatorial expurgation, together 
with universal salvation and Protestant repentance, as now 
practiced — may God give me strength of mind to break the 
fetters that have bound the church and world for ages past, 
so that ages to come may escape the sighs, tears, blood, and 
groans that have ever followed the footsteps of this monster — ■ 
hideous and vile ! 

And first, it is unphilosophical. It is the province of 
mind power to control mind ; moral power to control heart 
or moral nature ; physical power to control physical nature. 
These are the never changing laws that God has interwoven 
into these departments of his creation, and by them He controls 
and governs. Any attempt to control mind and morals 
through physical force is as foolish and vain as the effort 
to control matter by thinking and feeling. Philosophically 
considered, the fabric falls. Scripturally, let us draw nearer 
the subject. We go to the land of Egypt. I go there 
because two classes of punishment were inflicted, and in- 
flicted by the Lord. And we learn essentially the design of 
the punishment — its purpose, object, end, and effect. God 
wanted freedom for his people ; wanted Pharaoh to let them 
go into the land that he had given to their father Abraham, 
with a promise to him that his seed should inherit the land. 
Pharaoh places himself and nation between God and the ful- 
filment of his promise on which depends the fulfilment 
of the promise of the Christ. The king resists; the 
conflict began, was carried on, and ended. God said — they 
shall go. The king said they shall not. The punishment 
began, and began on the material nature. They walk down to 
bathe in their watery god, the flowing Nile, and wash off 



206 caskey's book. 

their sins. Its waves are blood. The frogs they worship in 
countless numbers come, filling their beds and bread trays. 
By uncounted thousands they die, until an intolerable 
stench fills the land with a putrid and nauseous odor. Im- 
agine, if you can, the anguish of heart experienced by them, 
when in the midst of their dead gods they stood and inhaled 
the tainted air. The cow, their holy Isis, came up covered 
with unsightly blurs and running sores. Ten times waved 
the rod of God in the hands of Moses, ten of their idolized, 
worshiped, and devoutly venerated and fervently loved 
gods were converted into unsightly and offensive objects. 
At last the wail of death is heard in every household, from 
the palace of the king to the hovel of the beggar. Then the 
voice of the nation comes up as the voice of many waters, 
" Let these people go or we be all as dead men." Pharaoh 
could no longer resist the voice of God, and his own people 
could drink no more draughts from the cup of anguish, moral 
and physical, that God had pressed to his lips. He gave 
up and said they might go. What was God trying to con- 
trol and govern, change and reform? The mental and moral 
nature? Not a word of it. This would be to make God as 
unwise as a called and sent preacher. There are two 
reasons why moral reformation never entered the mind of 
God ; the first was, the king had no morals to reform. He 
was a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction — fitted himself to 
destruction before God had anything to do with him ; and, 
second, the means used were not adapted in the nature of 
things to the accomplishment of the end. If God started 
out to make Pharaoh or any of his nation any purer in heart 
or holier in heart or feelings, then this was one of the greatest 
failures now on record or that ever will be ; but God never 
makes a failure! After all this punishment inflicted 
and endured, what was accomplished by it? All that God 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 207 

intended — all it can accomplish. It controlled action. 
God punishes to compel or prevent action. He did not make 
an effort, in all these punishments, to make him think he 
ought to let them go — to love to let them go. Act ! 
whether you love or hate me, whether you want them to go 
or not, is not the question. Were I seeking to change mind, 
volition, heart, or life, a different class of means would be 
called into action. How many were converted? Not a 
single one, no, not one. We next take God's own people. 
Think of their four hundred years of Egyptian bondage, of 
all they suffered under cruel taskmasters ; punished fearfully 
in mind, in heart, and body, until life was a burden, one 
long drawn out agony. How many pure, hearts were found 
among them when Moses was sent to deliver them ? Not 
one. For fifteen hundred years God had his nation in hand, 
and during that period the recital of their suffering curdles 
the blood. In their forty years journeyings in the wilder- 
ness — hunger, thirst, bitten by fiery serpents, slain with 
the sword, the earth opening her jaws and swallowing them, 
the jewels they had despoiled their enemies of made into a 
molten calf, around which they poured out their pent up 
idolatry ; it is in pieces broken, to ashes burned, and 
scattered on the waters ; humiliated, tortured by the destruc- 
tion of theiridol, while the blood from thousands of idola- 
trous bodies saturate the sands of the wilderness. 

During their national life God punished them with famine, 
pestilence, and sword ; with imprisonment, bondage ; blight- 
ing their fondest hopes, disappointing their expectations, 
blasting their prospects, and bringing to naught their wisest 
council. What was all this inflicted for ? To reform moral 
life, convert mind or heart, to engender faith or love ? The 
man who so thinks is demented indeed. What inflicted for? 
To reform actions, to control the body — make it stand still 



208 casket's book. 

or move forward, as God might command. To compel them 
to obey His law ; if not prompted by love, then impelled by 
fear and force, the sacrifice shall be offered, said the law, 
whether in faith and love or in unbelief and hatred. Sins 
must be confessed whether repented of or gloried in. 
Death was the penalty ; it was the rod of terror waved over 
the head of slaves ; it was the scorpion lash with which the 
wretch through slavish fear was whipped into doing right. 
On down the ages, hearts unchanged, minds on mischief 
bent, the natural current swept. Stiff-necked, self-willed, 
unbroken, stubborn, rebellious. When obedient their vessel 
sailed over the unruffled surface — gentle breezes filled her 
sails — majestically she gUded. When they refused to do 
as commanded, clouds lowered, and storms of punishment 
were poured out in burning showers. Finally the end came. 
The cup of their iniquity was full to the brim ; they added 
another drop in putting the Lord's anointed to death, for 
whose introduction into the world God had been using them 
all these ages. They fondly thought that he was using them 
for their own aggrandizement. Their cup overflowed ; their 
doom was sealed. On this breaker their ship of state was 
wrecked, and all on board went down in the troubled sea of 
annihilation. His purpose in raising up and guiding their 
national life o'er many tempestuous seas had been accom- 
plished. He took his hand from the helm. A pilot of their own 
laid his hand on the wheel ; she drifted along with winds and 
tides, or lay' becalmed and motionless, making no headway 
to any port, until the last storm arose. Titus encamped 
around the holy city, and siege was laid to the city of great 
kings, where the visible presence of God had brightly shone 
for more than a thousand years ; that sacred place to which 
their faces turned when they prayed for deliverance from 
captivity ; the place of which they thought when their un- 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 209 

strung harps hung from boughs of the willows of Babylon ; 
when they asked, with breaking hearts, "How can we sing 
the songs of Zion in this strange land ? " The city around 
which gathered a thousand hallowed memories and sacred 
associations is now doomed. The fearful prophecy of Him 
who wept over her is about to be fulfilled: " Not one stone 
shall be left upon another ; " " the sanctuary shall be trod- 
den under foot by the Gentiles ; your house shall be deso- 
late." The sufferings of this siege no mind can grasp — no 
tongue can tell — no pencil paint. Imagination in her ut- 
most effort in horror dies away. More than a million per- 
ished — slowly, torturingly perished from hunger and thirst. 
All the others into captivity carried away. Such was the 
bitterness of their cup that, Josephus tells us that the voice 
of motherhood was silenced till they appeased the gnawings 
of the tooth of gaunt famine by eating the roasted flesh of their 
own babes. O ye believers who are burdening the air to-day 
with your silly twaddle about the purifying and reforming 
power of punishment, publishing on the pages of the press 
how you and punishment turned the heart of the red-handed 
assassin of innocence, whose hands are wet with blood, who, 
after gratifying his hellish lust, slew his victim to conceal his 
crime. The law inflicting the punishment of a few months' 
imprisonment, perhaps, in irons ; and you, with your prayers, 
have speedily, happily, and hopefully converted him ; or in 
the midst of a crowd of religious simpletons, made so by 
your doctrine, he tells his marvelous experience of redeem- 
ing grace, and with sheriff and preacher as attendants, 
after exhorting the assembled, gaping crowd to meet him 
in heaven, the drop falls, and from an ignominious life he 
swings up into the angels' home, doubtless to the profound 
astonishment of all the dwellers in that far-off, beautiful 
home where purity dwells. The farce, most pitiful, is 

14 



210 

ended, so far as you -and he are concerned ; but you have 
given to this fell destroyer of human bliss license to pursue 
his path of ruin. How many minds of unsuspecting youths 
are tainted with the poisonous breath of this delusion? 
Their footsteps are lured into the downward path of trans- 
gression ; they do not intend to get as bad as he, but if they 
should, they console themselves with the present popular be- 
lief that the jail is the best place to get modern religion — 
that the murderer can get it quicker, and more of it, than 
anybody else, and that the scaffold is the best throne from 
which to mount to glory. And thieves are made, and mur- 
derers manufactured, to follow in the footsteps of their 
illustrious predecessor, the thief on the cross. How much 
better to be a thief, or even a murderer, and make sure and 
quick work of it, than to be an honest man or pure-hearted 
girl, and have to groan, pray, and weep at the mourning 
bench for weeks? If the governor were to pardon your 
convert, and the sheriff throw the noose from around his 
neck, a little common sense and knowledge of human nature, 
thus coupled, would cause you to put your hand on your 
purse and watch. For he would as certainly plunge again 
into the sea of crime as water seeks its level. No use to 
sing that poetic fiction, that ''while the lamp holds out to 
burn, the vilest sinner may return.'* The Holy Spirit says 
they have seared their conscience as with a hot iron ; they 
are past feeling, given over to hardness of heart ; to believe 
a lie that they may be damned. I ask you to go back in 
your imaginations, if you can, and travel along down this 
line of fifteen hundred years of Jewish punishment ; meas- 
ure its heights and depths ; ask yourselves the question : 
How many hearts were turned .to God? Then hang your 
heads in shame, and on bended knees ask God to forgive 
you for making such a fearful mistake in regard to his design 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 211 

of punishment. It is now preached and believed that he 
punishes his called preachers into the pulpit. He wants 
them to go and preach, and they don't want to do it; but 
he gives them no rest until he tortures rebellion out of their 
hearts — until they go, much to the discredit of Christianity 
and the church that gives them authority. Sinners resist 
God; he wants them to come and be saved; they don't 
want to be saved ; God resorts to his never-failing remedy 
for stubborn cases ; he goes to punishing them till their 
hearts are changed, and they are converted. Sometimes 
he uses rather singular means. At least singular to me. A 
certain D. D. was holding forth in a city in this State, draw- 
ing good houses, and was regarded by his people as a great 
man. Some of his members asked me to go and hear him, 
which I did. He was trying to get those with whom the 
Holy Spirit was striving not to resist its divine influences. 
The fact of his striving with them was proof that they were 
among the elect, and that God had decreed to bring all 
such into the fold ; that they had better come then than to 
cause him to use harsher means. And to enforce this doc- 
trine he narrated the following (which he said came under 
his own observation, and I had no reason to doubt his word) : 
He said there was a man who had reached the age of fifty. 
The Spirit commenced its drawing at the age of sixteen. 
He resisted it. At the age of fifty he was the father of 
three grown daughters, and the husband of their mother, a 
Christian girl when he married her, in his youth. To bring 
this old sinner in, the Lord laid his hand upon the youngest 
daughter, and she slept with the dead. It failed. The life of 
the eldest was trampled out under the feet of the pale horse, 
and then, next, he was childless but still obdurate — the 
wife of his youth joined her sainted daughters on the other 
side of the river, for they were all Christians, and prayed 



212 casket's book. 

for him, and exhorted him in their dying hours to turn from 
sin. He still fought against God's means in that direction. 
Finally, in going from the town one day, his horses took 
fright, ran off with the wagon, upsetting and smashing it 
up, and broke the old sinner's leg, from which he came near 
dying. That brought him safely into the fold. I wondered 
much, and wonder yet, why the all-wise God did not try the 
last and effectual remedy first, and let the four good women 
live. Then wondered if he would kill the wives and daugh- 
ters of all sinful husbands and fathers, and if that proved 
a useless sacrifice of good lives, and that God had made a 
great mistake, but finally hit upon the right power at last, 
will he put a big scare on the horses of all these old incor- 
rigible fellows and make them run away with the wagon, and 
break their legs! Jf he does not, then he does not give 
them a fair chance to get to heaven, and Peter was mistaken 
when he said that God is no respecter of persons. Then I 
wondered if I had not gotten hold of the wrong book, for I 
had been preaching that " the Gospel was the power of God 
to salvation to all that believe," and that "faith comes by 
hearing," when I ought to have been preaching that a span 
of frightened mustang ironies, with a wagon rattling at their 
heels, was the power, and that faith came through a broken 
leg. And lastly, I wondered what I would have done had 
his case been in my hands. I concluded that I would have 
let the women live ; made the horses run off ; break his leg 
higher up — just under the ears — and saved or damned him, 
which ever I pleased ! 



CHAPTEE XYII. 

THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 

No. 2. 

i^^AVING in my previous sermon passed over, in part, 
'^ the punishment inflicted and endured from the advent 
of Moses into Egypt until the destruction of Jerusa- 
^=^J1 lem ; and having seen its object, the design and pur- 
pose for the infliction thereof, as mapped out in the sacred 
volume, I hardly deem it necessary to enter into an exami- 
nation of its facts and influences, as recorded on the pages 
of profane history, for they are the same in results. Although 
foolish man has used them for the purpose of making wiser 
the head and purer the heart, which never entered into the 
motives of the all- wise God, the result has been a failure 
among all nations and peoples. At all times and in all places 
where the theory has been believed and practiced, it has 
proved an utter failure. The few exceptional cases of re- 
formation under punishment are not due to the punishment, 
only in so far as perhaps imprisonment cut them off from 
active participation in practicing their crimes and violations 
of law. Their minds were forced into other channels of 
thought, and moral influences entered and did the work. 
They thought, perhaps, of the prayer their fond mothers 
taught them when, as innocent little curly-headed boys, they 
bowed at her knees, laid their heads in her lap and learned 
from her lips — now motionless in death — to repeat the 
prayer Christ taught his disciples ; lessons learned in Sunday 

(213) 



214 casket's book. 

school, long to memory lost, revived. These and other 
reforming influences gain admittance through the punish- 
ment which simply prevents wicked action. But reform- 
ations are exceedingly rare, few and far between, not 
one in a hundred. As a rule, punishment hardens. The 
thief leaves the prison of punishment a worse man than he 
was when he entered its walls. Even should he recognize 
that the punishment is just, which very few do, still it makes 
him no better, for the simple reason that there is nothing in 
it to reach that. God never intended it for the accomplish- 
ment of any such purpose. After the thief is turned out, 
he may not steal your horse, or purse ; not because he don't 
desire to do so, would love to do it ; his will is to do it, but 
the recollection of what he suffered when he wore the spotted 
pants for two years in State prison prevents his action. It 
may throw its aegis of protection around your stable, but 
nine times in ten it does not even do that. I punish my 
little son Willie for disobeying me, in plucking a two-thirds 
ripe pear which hung, with a few others, on a young tree in 
the yard. I give him a good switching. Willie cries most 
lustily, for it hurts. His cries bring his mother to the door. 
She asks me what I am whipping the child for. I say to 
her, he has theft in his little heart and the sin of disobedi- 
ence. But I guess by the time I am through practicing this 
orthodox theory of purification by punishment, he will never 
desire to taste another pear, stolen in disobedience to my 
law. And to make sure work of it, rejecting the doctrine 
that there may be too much of a good thing, I reason as a 
philosopher, that if there is purifying power in it, the greater 
the punishment the greater the purity ; and I continue the 
chastisement until my arm is tired, and poor Willie is nearly 
fainting. I congratulate myself that the work is effectually 
done, while the little fellow sobs himself to sleep, leaning 



THE DESIGN OP PUNISHMENT. 215 

his flushed face on his mother's breast. The next day wife 
comes to me with tears in her eyes and sorrow in her motherly 
heart, for "Willie is very dear to her. She says : ' ' You will 
have to whip poor little Willie again ; I saw him standing 
and looking on those pears with longing eyes, and his mouth 
was watering for another taste of the delicious juice. I 
verily believe he wants the second worse than he did the first. 
I don't see," says the weeping woman, ''howl can stand 
to see him punished any more ; but as he is totally de- 
praved, and that is the only way to destroy it, perhaps, 
with the aid of an eternal decree and our prayers, if he is 
one of the elect, we may get it out of him ; if non-elect, then 
the case is hopeless, and our only darling is lost. But, 
husband, if he is an elect, then he will be saved without the 
suffering he endured yesterday; if non-elect, he will be 
damned, whipping and all, so don't whip little darling any 
more." Now, dear wife, as you have turned theologian, you 
go to your prayers and I will go to thinking. I went to my 
study, closed the door, forgot Willie and the pear, wholly 
absorbed in the one question : What is punishment inflicted 
for? The conclusions reached I am now giving to the read- 
ers of this book, praying God that I may humbly aid in stop- 
ping the constant flow of childhood's tears unnecessarily 
falling, through punishment unwisely and unscripturally 
administered, through this thrice false theory. At the close 
of researches and thorough examination, I called my wife 
and said to her : The whole theory is a huge theological lie. 
The devil is its father ; sin its mother. It was shapen in 
iniquity and called and sent preachers brought it forth. 
But how about Willie and the pear? for really I have 
been so absorbed that I have not thought of either. ' ' The 
pears are still hanging on the limbs and ripening in the sun- 
shine, and you need not fear that he will pull another pear. " 



216 casket's book. 

Well I do wonder if I have had all my investigation for 
worse than nothing, and said hard things of the chosen of 
the Lord ? You tell me that Willie says he has lost all desire 
to steal the pears and break my law. Can it be that the 
punishment inflicted has brought about this result? Then, 
I say, " glory to punishment, and to keep him in this blessed 
frame of mind and heart, and to prevent his falling, I will 
go and chastise him again." Wife: " I don't think it was 
the whipping did it. After seeing him the next day, after 
that sound punishment laid upon him, almost before he had 
quit smarting under the stripes, I saw the longing eyes fixed 
on the tempting fruit, I began to doubt the whole theory and 
the cruel practice growing out of it. I took the child on my 
knee and diverted his thoughts by telling him an interesting 
story suited to his j^ears. When I had turned the current of 
his thoughts from the pears, I then told him how good and 
kind you were to him ; all that you did for him ; how wrong 
and wicked it was for him to trample on your authority ; 
that he would lose your love and bring sorrow into your 
heart, create fearful forebodings in regard to his future ; 
that you and I would wish he had never seen the light, to 
cause us to exclaim, with Job : ' Let darkness cover the day 
on which it was said a man child was born.' Talked to him 
of what I had suffered and done for him ; how it almost broke 
my heart to see him punished. When I ceased to speak, the 
childish tears were running down his face. Raising his soft 
and tearful eyes to mine, he said: 'Mother, dear mother, 
I will never steal another pear; I won't go near the 
tree ; will try and think of other things ; I would have 
pulled another the next day ; I did want it so much, but 
I remembered how bad the whipping hurt, and that withheld 
my hand. ' ' Punishment can not reach the heart. The heathen 
on his post, the monk in his cell, wrapped in his hair cloth- 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 217 

ing, with sharp pointed tacks to pierce the flesh, with all their 
fastings, flagellations and macerations, their hearts are not 
as pure as they would be if they mingled with their f ellowmen 
and sought to do them good in the discharge of life's active 
duties. As to the self-imposed penance of priests and nuns 
in turning to silence the voice of nature, and defeat, as far 
as they have power, the will of God in peopling the world — 
their self-imposed celibacy — their hearts would be purer if 
children gathered about their knees and called them father 
and mother — the vile and foul lie uttered by their priest- 
hood against motherhood that it is impure and not as sanc- 
tified as virginity, is a sin to taint the heart of a saint. And 
how any man that has a mother and wife can have any 
respect for men who made the foul thing, or preach it is a 
wonder ! The priest who says that the mother who bore me, 
and the mother of my children, are not as pure, on account 
thereof, as their immaculate virginity, never has, and never 
will grasp my honest right hand. I thus record my pro- 
found contempt for them all ! 

Having, as we think, fully shown the utter falsity of the 
theory, we now look at its effects on the systems builded 
thereon, and from which they derived their life, penance, 
purgatory, restorationism, resulting in universal salvation. 
The Catholic soul is sent to purgatory to have his sins burned 
off, or up, or out, which ever it is. Some remain a shorter, 
some a longer time, measured by the number and nature of 
their sins. Each remains until purgation is complete, until 
he pays the last penny. Bishop Purcell said, in his debate 
with Mr. Campbell, that he " had no doubt that there were 
popes then in purgatory expiating their crimes in its penal 
fires. ' ' I fear the bishop was right, and perhaps he might have 
used the word all with truth ; provided there be any such a 
place. He said they were there, and admitting that he knew 



218 casket's book. 

more about his own household than I did, or do, they had 
been there since their death to the time of the debate. How 
much longer they will have to remain he did not inform us ; 
but to make the best of it, it was a right long and hot time 
for a pope. The bishop says they are there. I and the Bible 
say, if they were, they were there yet, and will be world with- 
out end, for the reason that there is nothing in their pun- 
ishment to make them any better than when they passed its 
.gloomy portals. Fire can't burn out the love of sin ; can't 
burn in the love of God. I might perhaps prove that they 
are worse, as is the thief when he leaves his penitentiary 
home ; but I care not to do it. There are some questions 
just at this point I hope some of the advocates of punishment 
for purification will answer, as they have never done so. 
First. What caused those popes, or any one else, to go 
there ? Second. How long will they stay there ? And, third. 
How are they to get out ? How are they to be prepared for 
heaven? How purified, if it be said, as said it is, by punish- 
ment? I offer, in addition to the first already stated, there 
is nothing in the means to accomplish the end ; that it sets 
aside the blood of Christ — the mercy and grace of God. 
To punish me till the debt is paid, and then to talk about 
mercy and grace, is to talk such nonsense as none but priest 
or preacher ever uttered. To talk of purification by blood 
divine when you claim it through your own pains and agon- 
ies is worse than folly. Christ's blood was shed on earth; 
not in purgatory, nor the hell of restorationists. It was shed 
to save from sin in this life ; for men in the flesh ; for the 
inhabitants of earth, not of hell. It destroys pardon of sins. 
To make you pay and then talk of forgiving the debt would 
disgrace the devil. If he is a Catholic, and in purgatory, he 
can't be saved by faith, for that he had before he went there ; 
he can't be saved by gospel repentance, for that he had if he 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 219 

was ever pardoned here. He can't be saved by his baptismal 
regeneration. Even his water god is burned up. He can't 
be saved by cannibaHsing on the flesh and blood, soul and 
divinity of the Lord Jesus, for there is no transubstantiation 
there. Nothing but his suffering as a last punishment, and 
that alone, for that is all there is in hell. Won't there be a 
nice specimen of purified humanity wending its way up to the 
abode of the blessed ! Scorched and smoke-begrimed ; the 
smell of sulphur emitting its odor from his soul, just out of 
a place filled with devils and spirits damned ! From the asso- 
ciation of those he left behind — liars, murderers, drunkards, 
thieves, prostitutes, gamblers, saloon-keepers, whoremongers, 
adulterers, and idolaters ! All that is morally Impure, out 
of this pest house he comes! Will he not need another 
j)urification between hell and heaven to make him even look 
decent? And should he be admitted within the city of the 
hosts purified by blood, while their joyous song of Moses 
and the Lamb is rolling on through the vaulted arches of 
heaven — glory, honor, peace, majesty, and dominion be 
ascribed to Him who washed us in His own blood, and made 
us kings and priests to God, — from this foul ghost, fresh 
from the haunts of all that's polluting, a discordant note, like 
the raven's discordant croak, mingling -with the melody 
of joyous song birds — glory to the fires of purgatory, that 
burned off my sins, and made me fit for heaven ! Glory to 
my sufferings there ! I paid my way out ; I am here as an 
honest man, indebted to no one, and I think I ought to take 
precedence and go higher up than you who availed yourselves 
of grace and faith, repentance and baptism — took the bene- 
fit of the bankrupt law, and dodged the payment in good and 
lawful currency of purgatory, which is punishment. I will 
not discuss the second question further, but give a passing 
thought to the first : What took them there ? Two answers 



220 casket's book. 

may be given this. Either they did not believe that there 
was any such a place, or if they believed it they decided that 
it might not be so very long, nor so very bad, and they would 
take the chances to gratify their lust for ill-gotten wealth ; 
fame won by lying and fraud ; power gained by selling out 
honest convictions to the party in power, and other nefarious 
means better understood by political hucksters than by hon- 
est men ; gratify sensuous desires and enjoy their pleasures, 
and after awhile they would reform and get religion in good 
old orthodox style. Poor deluded mortals ! They had not 
measured the strength of habit nor the hardening influence 
of sin. Long before they reached satiety — gained their 
end — their moral perceptions grew dim, their conscience 
silenced, moral sensibilities blunted. No place was left for 
repentance. They had resisted until resistance became a 
fixed habit, all moral influences by successful resistance 
subdued. Their influence grew weaker at each time that re- 
sistance was the victor, until the conflict ended in the death, 
as far as he is concerned, of all moral power. The Gospel 
has proven to him, as the Apostle said it would, a " savor of 
death unto death." The time was when the simple and 
pathetic story of the Cross reached his heart and brought 
tears to his eyes. Now it falls powerless on dull ears and 
an unfeeling heart. His doom is fixed. He has no power 
to create the state of mind and heart that must exist to 
make him a Christian. The power that once created it is 
dead — slain by his own hand. He can no more create this 
than he can call up the feelings he had when the first oath 
passed his profane lips, or the blush of shame that red- 
dened his manly face when first he fell a victim to the intox- 
icating cup. He can pour forth torrents of oaths without 
an emotion, and sleep in the gutter with the hog without a 
blush. Now, no chance is left but purification by punish- 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 221 

ment, on which he lays hold as a drowning man grasps at 
straws. Others, perhaps more fortunate than he, are able 
to reject the whole theory of punishment in the future world, 
and turn infidel, reject God and the Bible, or adopt that 
which is no better — that we pay up as we go through 
this life — that sin brings its own punishment. To this, I 
shall offer but one objection and then pass to another branch 
of the subject. There can be no equality in the penalties 
paid for the same sins committed. Two men may commit 
the same offense against divine law ; one goes free, the other 
brings on himself untold suffering, entails upon his innocent 
posterity the sufferings he endured. In process of time a 
thousand tainted bodies groan beneath the burden of his sin. 
Thus the dogma inflicts gross injustice in two directions. If 
the violator who committed the same act got punished enough 
when he went untainted in his body, the other was punished 
too much, and you may repeat the senseless howl against 
endless punishment being disproportioned to the sins. Then 
what are you going to do with the infliction of punishment 
on the innocent ? All that was said in regard to the Catholic 
from purgatory applies to the restorationist, from their hell. 
I am under the impression that they ought to try and give to 
their deluded victims some idea of how long their punish- 
ment will last, and something in regard to its intensity, and 
how it is inflicted ? And this brings us to the branch of the 
subject mentioned above. What is the nature of the pun- 
ishment? That being ascertained, will go far to settle the 
question of duration. It may be literal and material as the 
orthodox lake of fire and brimstone kept perpetually and 
fiercely " burning by the breath of God,'' as some of their 
writers express it. It may be mental and moral. If the 
former, it may possibly come to an end ; if the latter, never ! 
I offer the following objections to the first theory : There 



222 casket's book. 

could be no degrees in suffering — all plunged into the same 
sulphurous lake, only that the best man might, if of a nervous, 
sensitive temperament, and highly susceptible to pain, suffer 
much more than the phlegmatic murderer. Secondly : It is 
called a place of outer darkness. Now, such a lake, large 
enough to hold the lost of Adam's race, would illumine a 
thousand such worlds as ours. Third : Fire can only feed 
upon materiality, and there will be none there. Fire can't 
burn mind and moral emotion. I think these facts sets to 
rest this brimstone fiction. Besides those who contend for 
punishment purification, outside Catholicism, and that are 
doing the greatest amount of harm, ignore the material hell 
of modern invention, and we are agreed and both throw our- 
selves on the second, the mental; when that is done, the 
duration is unalterable, fixed. We agree as to the cause. 
It is sin. Now, to prove the end of suffering, you must 
prove the end of sin. The devil and his angels sinned, 
and have been punished from then till now. Have they 
ceased to sin? Will they ever cease? Jude tells us 
that " the angels who kept not their first estate are reserved 
in chains of darkness to the day of judgment to be pun- 
ished." Have they ceased to sin? No one will deny that so 
long as the cause exists, so long must the effect. What 
causes this mental suffering ? Their own acts ; their mis- 
spent lives; their violations of God's law; their rejection 
of God's son; their non-obedience to the Gospel of the 
Lord Jesus Christ ; the recollection of their crimes and its 
results. Paul says and gives the reasons why they are 
"banished from the presence of God, and from the glory of 
his power, because they believed not nor obeyed the 
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." Will these causes ever 
cease? These reasons be blotted out? Never. They can't 
blot them out. They never can believe in God. They know 



THE DESIGN OP PUNISHMENT. 223 

him ; faith, and not knowledge, is that which purifies the 
heart, and honors God. When the day of judgment comes, 
and the nations stand before God, then there will be uni- 
versal knowlege, universal confession, and every knee shall 
bow. They know he is the Christ, but who among them will 
be saved ? Not one ; while all that voluntarily confessed and 
bowed shall enter into rest. All on whom the knowledge was 
thrust, confession extorted, and bowing the knee by coercion, 
shall be banished. I am aware of the fact that the word 
know is often used when the subject-matter spoken of shows 
that it is used as a strong expression of the full assurance 
of faith; such as, " We know that if our earthly house of 
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a 
house not made with hands" — not used in the sense of 
absolute knowledge, for we don't know that there is a God, 
a house, or heavens, or that this fallen-down tabernacle will 
ever be remodeled ; we believe it. Any one, therefore, who 
seeks to bring our holy religion within the circle of knowl- 
edge, is unconsciously sapping its very foundation. Hence, 
I have often felt mortified and disgusted with the efforts of 
pettifogging ignoramuses trying to get up a sensation by 
calUng on their brethren and sisters to testify for Jesus : 
"All who know that your sins are pardoned, please rise to 
your feet," and up they rise. The preacher counts, com- 
ments on their moral worth and mental character, and you 
know these people — their character for truth and veracity. 
If the title to your house and lot were involved and all these 
witnesses were to testify in your favor, would you not feel 
secure in your title? Of course you would. Well, Mr. 
Clerical Humbugger march your witness over to the court- 
house, and in the presence of the judge and the majesty of 
the law, learn what the testimony of your witnesses is 
worth. Then ask God in your shame to pardon and 



224 casket's book. 

ask the outraged intelligence outside of those you gulled, to 
forgive you, and then promise God and them that you will 
play off this silly joke no more. You assemble your 
crowd of witnesses ; they lay their right hand on the holy 
Bible — not one of them to save that right hand rest- 
ing there would venture to commit that perjury. Well, the 
court says : ' ' What do j^ou really know about this claimant's 
title ? " " Well, your honor, I don't really know anything. ' ' 
"Well, what is the proof that satisfies your own mind that 
the house and lot are his?" "I just feel like it, your 
honor, and I would not give what I feel in here (laying his 
hand where his heart ought to be), for all your printed laws 
and rules of evidence." The judge says: "Mr. Sheriff, 
adjourn this court. We have got on hand a lot of bed- 
lamites." I have seen this old clown's trick played off in 
the theological circus ring in cities, the centers of intelli- 
gence. O, how much must the religion of Jesus suffer at 
the hands of these clowns ! But I have been led off. You 
can never believe in God. Forced knowledge has taken its 
place, or the place that faith ought to have had, and surely 
you could not hope to be saved for what you could not help. 
You can not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. It is not 
preached there. Ought you not to prove that opportunities 
will be offered there, to remove those crimes, and then that 
you will accept them? Unless you can prove that better 
influences will be brought to bear on you there than here, 
then, if not, I prove that you will reject the offers there. You 
will be rejected from the fact that you rejected here. Do 
you expect a better gospel, better associations? Here you 
had the influence of the pure and good ; of a sainted wife 
and Christian daughter ; of innocent baby prattle, and as- 
sociation with Christian father and mother. They are in 
heaven, and you admit there is nothing pure in the place 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 225 

you dwell. Your case, beyond question, is hopeless. And 
can you separate yourself from the other source through 
which unhappiness flows to you? The recollection of the 
wrongs done — the sins committed — the crimes perpetrated ? 
As a man sows, so shall he reap, is the fiat of almighty 
God, and 'tis just ; and he must reap a full harvest. The 
Holy Spirit, through the Apostle John, gives to the children of 
God the assurance of a full and complete harvest, when he 
tells them that they shall rest from their labors, and that 
their works shall follow them. What is true of one class is 
true of all that sow the seed and reap the harvest. And in 
order that the harvest may be reaped, the Christian must 
know his good works, and their remote as well as their 
present effects ; and so must the sinner. Our actions put 
on the garb of immortality. Much complaint is made and 
many foolish things said and written about the disparity be- 
tween the sins and the penalties. On this rock, the great, the 
good, and lamented Bro. Lard run his craft ; and while he 
did not wreck, he shattered some of the timbers of as fine a 
built ship as ever sailed on time's^ sea. Had he first tried to 
follow some sin till it died, he would have spared the feelings 
of those who loved him in life, and mourned him in death ; 
and he would not have written the argument that caused the 
pain. Poor short-sighted mortal, that could not follow one 
of his sins for a single day, after he started it on its never-end- 
ing journey. To undertake to say how punishment is due, 
is a great piece of presumption! Besides, the argument is 
based upon assumed premises, which I deny, and that is that 
God does the punishment; God does the banishment and 
man the punishment. Each man makes his own hell and 
punishes himself in it — as I intended to prove in this ser- 
mon, but space will not permit. Let us try and trace one 

15 



226 casket's book. 

sin and find the end ; and then ask what the man ought to 
suffer. An administrator on an estate defrauds six orphan 
children out of the wealth left them by their deceased father. 
A not uncommon sin, as the records of the courts show. He 
enriches himself. Turns the defrauded ones out to beggary 
and want. They grow in ignorance and crime. They be- 
get children like themselves. They, in turn, do as their 
fathers and mothers did. After this man was gathered, in 
honor, to his fathers (for he died rich and honored) ; after 
he sleeps in his grave for a thousand years, we inquire for 
his sin, and the answer comes from thousands of pinched 
faces — blear-eyed, half-starved pauper children ; from maud- 
lin lips of drunken, besotted, and beastly men, and the curses 
of abandoned, fallen women ; the number but measures with 
the revolving cycles of time ; and if these, the victims of his 
cupidity, are lost ; then his sin enters into the eternal world, 
and begins its onward roll through endless ages. We have 
the record of the descendants of one fallen woman, who, in 
the fourth generation, numbered seventy-eight. Seventy 
out of the number had been in jails, penitentiaries, and cal- 
abooses for crimes. But eight out of the number led re- 
spectable lives. We have selected these two sins to convey 
to the reader the truths that a sin is immortal, and the wide- 
spread ruin wrought by it, depending, of course, on the 
nature of the sin; and that we have to meet its conse- 
quences. One of two things is certain, if the Bible is 
true — pardon ov penalty — if the cause is not removed the 
effect is bound to follow. God, in his infinite love, has 
promised to sever the link between cause and effect to all 
who accept His pardoning grace. ' ' Your sins and iniqui- 
ties will I remember no more." He will sever the cord of 
memory that would gather them and disturb our peace 



THE DESIGN OF PUNISHMENT. 227 

there, as they do here, even after they are pardoned. 
Memory will gather nothing bnt the good. The evil will be 
oblivionized to us ; while the wicked can remember nothing 
but the evil. I feel that the subject demands another dis- 
course, in order to its full development ; but we must give 
place to others now more urgent. The wicked and the right- 
eous differ in their lives — differ in their deaths — differ in 
their resurrection — differ in their destiny. The last we 
hear of each is, "Come, ye blessed of my father, into the 
kingdom prepared for you, from the foundation of the 
world, " and. " Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity.'* 
Eeader, to which class do you belong ? Which words are 
you to hear? Prepare to meet thy God! 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

GETTING RELIGION; OR, THE MODERN MOURN- 
ING BENCH. 

N ENTERING upon the discussion of a subject that 
has enthralled the minds of so many great men, has 
fascinated so many of the unthinking, and has thrown 
^ its witching spells o'er so many hearts — whose mys- 
terious, shadowy form has gone forth unquestioned for so 
many years, and whose destructive blight has fallen in 
religious guise over the church and the world — making the 
good fanatical and driving others farther from Christ and 
Heaven ; the writer has fully weighed the task he under- 
takes and looked fairly in the face of the responsibility he 
assumes. 

Striking a blow with truth's ponderous hammer at this 
modern idol, whose ugly form and hideous face have so long 
disgraced the temple of God, the author is satisfied that the 
subject is not understood by either its numerous friends or its 
few foes. Did those who favor the getting of religion at the 
mourner's bench, the silent grove, or in any other special 
place, understand the process by which 'tis got, they would 
bring, triumphantly through, all who sincerely mourn or who 
worship at its shrine. And did such as oppose its use fully 
comprehend the philosophy of this mighty proselyting engine, 
they, long since, would have driven it from all churches and 
all places where insanity is not enthroned as the presiding 
divinity. 
(228) 



GETTING RELIGION. 229 

There are apparent mental and physical phenomena in this 
converting process that have not been philosophically scru- 
tinized. The mystery that throws its glamour over the 
sudden transition, reason has not dissipated. A veil hangs 
over the face of this wonder-working goddess which the 
mighty hand of truth has not, as yet, torn away. It is 
therefore my purpose to enter upon the work of uncovering 
the seemingly mysterious in modern conversions at the 
mourner's bench — thus destroying the only charm they 
ever had. 

At the threshold, a few truths, unquestioned by those 
acquainted with the laws governing the human mind and the 
human heart, will be submitted. These throw light along 
the path we are called to tread. 

And first, — Our whole emotional nature is moved by faith. 

Every joy or sorrow, hope or fear, pleasure or pain, felt 
by any human heart, is excited through faith — when not 
produced by a visible object — since, for all the joys and 
sorrows of this world — ah! and of the next — we are 
dependent on impressions from without; that is, upon 
words. 

Secondly, — The emotion excited is contained in the pro- 
position addressed to our faith. 

Belief of that proposition, and trust in its author, puts us 
into connection with it; and is the established channel 
through which the emotion it should excite arises in our 
hearts. 

Thirdly, — No emotion whatever proves the proposition 
excites that it to be true. The feeling will be the same 
whether the proposition be true or false, so that it is believed 
to be true. And if then believed afterwards to be false, the 
emotion at first excited by belief is exchanged for its opposite 



230 casket's book. 

or destroyed. This general principle of mental law we all 
learn in childhood's sunny hour. 

Were no minds but those trained to thought addressed in 
these pages, I would leave the above statements without argu- 
ment, proof, or illustration — leave them in all their native 
strength, clearness, truth and power, to be tested by the 
mental and moral experience of the world of cultivated mind ; 
but as many not in the habit of analyzing their own mental 
and moral states, or familiar with the unerring laws by which 
they are controlled, may read them, it may be well to more 
fully develop these principles by some few illustrations ; 
and to these I must ask the earnest and undivided attention 
of my readers, since they furnish a key to the whole subject. 

On the 21st day July, 1861, on the far-famed Manassas' 
field, two mighty armies met. Patriotic, brave, and gallant 
men, from North and South, in lines of battle stood — stood 
face to face, each ready to do and die for that which he 
believed to be right. Long, fearful, and bloody was the con- 
flict. Shot and shell ploughed up the earth, or went crashing 
through the quivering flesh and the breaking bones of living 
walls on either side. Death high carnival held that day. 
Lines were broken and again formed ; driven back and again 
springing forward to the fearful work of death. Amidst 
this terrible carnage — at half-past two — when the Confed- 
erate lines were by overwhelming numbers pressed back, and 
the heavy flanking column was moving with the precision of 
machinery, and the steady tramp- of veterans around the left 
of the Confederates — a hand was outstretched from the 
battle's smoke; the wires were touched; along the electric 
cord a message — couched in a single word — ran ; that 
word was victory. What joy, what happiness, what glad- 
ness were felt in many hearts and homes ! In the Capital a 



GETTING RELIGION. 231 

shout went up tliat awoke the echoes of the heights of Ar- 
lington ! All over the great North there was hurrying to and 
fro ; joy sparkled in every eye and beamed in every face ; 
men each other met, and grasped each others hands and 
wept. The rebellion was crushed ; the loved Union was 
saved ! 

Now, reader, shall we apply to these facts the principles 
already enunciated ; 

1. All these emotions resulted from faith. 

2. The joy experienced was in the proposition believed ; 
and faith was the medium through which it flowed. . 

3. The joy and triumph did not prove the proposition to 
be true. 

4. Belief in the falsehood of the proposition could not 
extirpate the joy. 

The proposition was false, yet it excited joy ; and that 
emotion would have been active to the present hour could 
faith have remained unshaken. But the wires were again 
touched ; another word flashed along the line ; that word was 
defeat. The grand army had been hurled back broken, 
bleeding, routed ! Their banner was in the dust ; wild panic 
reigned; joy to sorrow was turned, and all through the 
power of faith. 

A mother heard that her boy had been slain. Her heart 
was almost broken ; he was her only son. For three long 
years she mourned him as dead ; but one bright morn her 
stalwart boy before her stood in all his manly pride. Faith 
in the report had bowed down "with grief the loving mother's 
heart. The sorrow was in the statement by her beheved ; 
but no shadow of truth was in it. The grief was banished 
by what she saw — contradicting what she had believed. 
Had she died, she would have been killed by faith. Why 



232 casket's book. 

then should thinking men in wonder stand when beholding 
the scenes enacted at the modern mourning bench? 

We are now ready, dear reader, to draw near that 
spot, and to dissipate the mist that envelopes it. Go 
with us and let us analyze the workings of the human 
minds and the human hearts that are gathered there. 

Preachers and people together meet. The subject dis- 
cussed is " Jesus Christ and him crucified " for sinners. 
The minds of the hearers are in their normal state, and it is 
proved to them that Jesus died. In that statement, however, 
there is nothing that of necessity can reach the emotional 
nature of the audience, for he might have died for crime as 
his contemporary enemies alleged. It is proved, however, 
that he died for sin. Still the heart need not be touched, 
for it might have been the sins of Jews alone. Another step 
is taken. He died for man — tasted death for every man, 
for my sins and for your sins — as though for the sins of none 
else. If the sins of any man did not demand his voluntary 
death — that man has neither part nor lot in the matter* 
Every man had a hand in putting the Son of Man to death, 
since Paul tells an apostate that he crucified the Son of God 
afresh. If, now, the Son of God died for and by my sins, 
then I am a sinner. If ' ' He died for all, then all were 
dead." This touches the heart; this awakens a conscience 
not ' ' seared as with a hot iron ' ' — only let it be believed. 

Let us then select from the audience three persons, A. B. 
and C. They all hear the statement, and the proof of its 
truth. A. sits unmoved ; but B. and C. are seen to weep. 
Now, why this difference ? Either A. does not believe the 
statement he has heard, or he does not realize his sinful con- 
dition, for he does not desire pardon. B. and C. do believe 
that Christ died for their sins — they do feel that they are 



GETTING RELIGION. 233 

sinners. They are truly penitent, as those tears attest. 
But do their feelings prove that Christ has died ; that they 
are sinners ; that they are exposed to eternal death ? They 
form no part of the proof of either. They arise because of 
faith in the statement that ' ' Jesus died for our sins accord- 
ing to the Scripture. ' ' 

In this frame of mind and of heart on the part of the 
mourners, the invitation to come up to be prayed for is given. 
And from this point to the end, common sense, poetry, phi- 
losophy and religion all vanish. We must, however, follow 
our two friends, B. and C, to be witnesses of that transition 
of feeling which is vulgarly called conversion, or " getting 
religion. ' ' 

They arise from their seats, and humbly, in the altar, 
kneel at the mourner's bench, devoutly praying for pardon. 
They have now committed themselves before that audience, 
and their pride is appealed to to induce them to jpersevere. 
They have put their hands to the plow, and must not draw 
back, or they will be scoffed at by all lookers-on. But let 
us analyze their feelings. 

First. — What induced them to take this public step ? The 
preacher tells them they came to get faith, or, what he calls ' ' a 
saving view of Christ. ' ' Not true : they had as much faith 
in Christ when they left their seats as he had ; for they believ ed 
what he had preached. Faith in Christ — love for Christ, 
who had died for them as sinners, brought them there. They 
were influenced by faith, love, repentance, and a spirit of 
obedience, or why ask, " What must we do?" To say that 
they were not, is to charge them with insanity or hypocrisy. 
What did they not believe that the preacher did, if he had 
declared "the whole counsel of God?" A single sentence 
tells the secret : the preacher believed that he had been par- 
doned, and they did not. They remain at the bench crying 



234 casket's book. 

for mercy. The degree and the length of their agony will 
depend upon temperament and the surrounding excitement, 
their knowledge of sin and its penalties ; and the elevation 
of their feelings when the transition takes place — for it is 
of the very nature of emotion to exhaust itself by its own 
violence — will be measured by the previous depression. 

But what causes the transition? That is the important 
question ; on that hangs the vitality of the whole system. 
Here is the dwelling-place of the mystery, and here lurks 
the fatal poison. This is the grandest and most scandalous 
deception ever practiced upon the unsuspecting, either by 
" the Church ' ' or the world ; for even politicians have availed 
themselves of this machinery to engineer penitent converts 
into their party. God aiding, this deception shall be un- 
masked. It may be that the ruse is not intentional on the 
part of some who employ it; they are themselves deceived. 
Still we must faithfully examine into this momentous affair. 

"What, then, brings the reaction — the transition? What 
mighty power imparts to those feeble limbs — which could 
not support the body a moment before — the strength of a 
maniac? What gives to that pallid, tear-bathed cheek the 
ruddy carnation-glow of health? What makes those dull, 
lustreless eyes, red with weeping bitter tears, flash with a 
light and a brilliancy that would shame the diamond's ray? 
What makes that wailing, moaning voice, scarcely audible a 
moment before, ring out clear as the trumpet's blast? Why, 
the same power that sent the thrill of joy through the North, 
when * ' Victory ' ' flashed along the wires ; that bowed down 
the agonized mother, when she heard that her son was dead ; 
the power of a proposition brought to the heart, in each case, 
by faith. 

But what did one of these mourners — B. , for example — 
believe? What proposition contained so much joy, created 



GETTING RELIGION. 235 

such indescribable delight? If we can tell what made him 
mourn, we can with the same certainty decide, and before- 
hand, what will remove their sorrow, and fill them with hap- 
piness. The mourner felt that he was a sinner ; that he was 
condemned ; and his sorrow arose from a conviction that he 
was unpardoned. It was not faith in Christ, as the Son of 
God, and the Mediator between God and man, that made 
him rejoice ; for that faith, resulting in a knowledge of his 
sinful and condemned condition, took him to the mourning- 
bench. It was a belief that he had been pardoned. And 
the moment he believes, and supposes that he feels this, all 
the joy contained in the doctrine of pardon, of the forgive- 
ness of sins, is realized. He might believe with all his heart 
all other propositions, and in all persons and things ; but 
altogether could impart no ray of joy. 

B. is thus brought through. Let us turn to poor C, who 
labors still to get through, and try to account for his failure. 
They went a certain distance together ; for they had each 
the same faith in Christ ; the same love for Christ ; the same 
repentance ; the same spirit of obedience, if going up to be 
prayed for be an act of obedience. Be that as it may, they 
have both done the same things, and for the same purpose. 
They are equally sincere, too, in themselves, praying for 
pardon, and in asking others to pray for it for them; and 
equally fervent and persevering. Perhaps the failing one 
was the more fervent ; but both have obeyed all that was re- 
quired of each, and yet the strange truth stares us in the 
face, that B. is through — a shouting convert — and C. is stiU 
a heartsick mourner. How do the friends of the system ac- 
count for this? B. was the worse man; he did not agonize 
so long nor so earnestly, it may be, and yet he got through 
first. It is accounted for by saying that C. will not believe 
on Jesus the Christ. He is exhorted to believe on him, to 



236 casket's book. 

exercise a little more faith, just a little more ; as though the 
poor, penitent, heart-broken sinner had not been believing 
on him all the time. They insult him by telling him to ex- 
ercise more faith in Christ. They assume that he has not 
believed what the Gospel requires — supposing that they have 
preached the Gospel. They insult the Son of God by ask- 
ing him to give the struggling mourner faith, when he has it 
already; and they mislead C. by teaching him that faith 
is a belief that he is pardoned, rather than a reliance upon 
and obedience to him in whom he already believes. 

What a singular spectacle ! God is willing to pardon the 
believing, penitent, obedient sinner ; the preachers and the 
Christians pray for his pardon ; he earnestly pleads for it 
himself ; they have told him all they know ; God has done 
all that can be done, in the relation in which the parties 
stand ; the sinner has done all he can, so far as he knows ; 
and, behold, a failure results from it all! Well may devils 
shout in hell, and infidels on earth be glad at these failures — 
and they are many. The advocates of this system can not 
account for them. A profound mystery rests upon them, 
and it becomes our duty to solve the riddle. 

B. and C. , it will be remembered, took several steps in com- 
mon ; they believed the same things ; they repented ; they 
loved ; they prayed. But B. went a step beyond C. : he be- 
lieved that he was pardoned, and hence his happy feelings. 
C. does not think he is pardoned, and still mourns. C. is 
trying to get the happy feelings, that he may believe himself 
to be pardoned ; while B. first believed this, and then got the 
feeling. And just at this point, one of the strangest blunders 
is made that ever was made since Adam was young, and the 
world was a babe. Strange, because it subverts all psycho- 
logical laws ; strange, because graduates of colleges perpe- 
trate it; men, also, who may be really great, practice it, 



GETTING RELIGION. 237 

both On themselves and others ; and stranger still, because 
it is neither taught, believed nor practiced — except by an 
occasional political demagogue — unless in religion. This 
is the delusion under which poor C. still struggles — that 
enwraps him all in its mantle. How strange that sane men 
should thus mistake an effect for a cause — even the cause 
of a cause. Joyous feelings are the effect of faith that they 
are pardoned; yet pardon, instead of faith, is made the 
cause of the feelings. This is as reasonable and as logical 
as it would be to rejoice, believing in the resurrection of the 
body ; and then to regard that rejoicing as a proof of the 
resurrection. 

One of two cases is certainly true: B.'s happy feelings 
arose either before he believed he was pardoned, or after- 
wards. If the former, it is a pity he was pardoned ; for he 
may never again feel so happy — to say nothing of the silly 
conceit of a man's getting shoutingly happy while under 
condemnation. If the latter — if after he believed he was 
pardoned — how thoroughly absurd to consider the feeling a 
proof of that act of the Divine government which blotted 
out the past. A simpleton would blush to say that he be- 
lieved he was" pardoned, without any evidence of it. B.'s 
happiness is no proof of pardon ; as already said, he can 
make nothing out of it but that he believes himself to have 
been pardoned ; and he must cease to beheve this when his 
feelings subside, or are replaced by others. It can not be 
shown that to beheve we are pardoned, is the Divine con- 
dition of pardon. If to believe what may be doubted is in- 
jurious, it may be that B. is in a worse condition than C. He 
beheved without proof, when he believed he had been par- 
doned, for he had not obeyed the Divine law of pardon ; "He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (pardoned). 

Save in this single instance, we repeat, and not even then, 



238 CASKET'S BOOK. 

except in this particular way, will a Protestant reason so 
unreasonably. His convert would not exchange what he 
has felt, and what he now feels, for all the Bible truths that 
can be uttered ; yet he will not accept the feelings of the 
Catholic dupe, which from penitence are transported into 
joy, under the cabalistic words of priestly absolution, as 
proof that he is truly pardoned by the priest ! Is it believed 
that the priest really has pardoned this penitent? Are the 
happy feelings questioned when the penitent himself believes 
this? Certainly not. All that is necessary to account for 
his joy, is, that he believes that his sins have been remitted. 
The protestant convert acts just as reasonably when, be- 
cause he thinks the great High Priest has pardoned him, and 
is happy — he insults common sense, the laws governing the 
emotions, and God's plan of giving evidence of pardon, 
when he offers his own feelings as that evidence. A Hindoo 
mother throws her babe into the Ganges to appease her gods, 
and to obtain their pardon. She goes away satisfied and 
happy. Does this prove that she is really pardoned? It 
proves her to be under the deadly influence of a galling su- 
perstition, but nothing more. 

This evidence indeed is unsatisfactory to the great mass 
of those who are urged to accept it. It is well known that 
the system of the mourning bench is now more indebted for 
its life to the Methodists than to any other people, or even 
than to all others. In years past, more than at present, 
these enthusiasts taught that sanctification was to be ob- 
tained precisely in the same way as justification. A contro- 
versy existed between them as to whether the former was an 
instantaneous or a gradual work. The instantaneous theory 
was defended by Wesley — at least so far as that it might 
be, and in many cases had been, instantaneous. This second 
edition of justification was obtained precisely in the same 



GETTING RELIGION. 239 

way, and depended upon precisely the same evidence, 
namely, the feelings, as the first. The candidate for sanc- 
tification went up to the altar, agonized, wept, groaned, 
sighed, and prayed, and preachers prayed as earnestly, de- 
voutly, and vociferously for the entire sanctification of the 
Christian, as for the justification of the sinner. I have often 
seen preachers seeking sanctification, mixed up in the altar 
with sinners seeking justification, and the experiences were 
so similar as not to be distinguished. No man, when they 
all got through, could have told the difference. There was 
the same sudden transition of feeling, and the same l5ound- 
ing- joy. The Christian, or the preacher himself, could point 
out no shade of difference between him and the new convert, 
either as to the agony before what was called " the witness 
of the Spirit*' was obtained that they were sanctified, and 
that the other was pardoned, or the after joy. 

The feelings being the same during the process, and the 
same at the end — the witness being the same, and giving 
testimony in the same way, it would appear impossible to 
question the genuineness of the work in either case — espec- 
ially by one who had himself experienced it in its .first 
edition. And yet not one-half the brethren of the sanctified 
preacher who witnessed his outcome believed one word of 
it. They regarded sanctification as a gradual process, not 
to be obtained in this way, and were therefore bound to 
reject this instantaneous work. Moreover, much the largest 
portion of these people do not receive the doctrine at all, as 
taught by their great Wesley, and the earlier Methodists ; 
and with nearly all it is among the things that were. 

How did the sanctified reach the transition of feeling they 
expressed? Exactly as the justified obtained theirs: in each 
case faith procured it. In the one, faith in pardon ; in the 
other, faith in sanctification ; in neither, faith in Christ. They 



240 casket's book. 

mourned that they were unsanctified, as* they believed; and 
rejoiced believing they were. Does the joy prove that they 
were ? Let the non-believers in the doctrine in their own 
church answer! Let all other churches, not believing it, 
answer! And yet, passing strange it is, that not one of the 
vast crowd of those who "get religion," has discovered 
that, in denying the sanctification of a Methodist, in this 
way, he rejects the only evidence he has of his own justifi- 
cation in the same way. The Baptist, the Cumberland, and 
all other getting-religion, or getting-pardon-in-this-way-f oiks, 
who doubt the sanctification of the Methodist, overturn the 
mighty fabric in which they have housed themselves, and 
what are they going to do ? Let us hear from you on this 
point. 

Another diflftculty arises just here : Why do you not re- 
quire of one who has fallen from grace, or has backslidden, 
that, when he desires to return, he shall undergo the same 
process in order to pardon ? And again : Why not teach a 
Christian, who often needs pardon as much as a poor sin- 
ner, that, until he gets the "witness of the Spirit" in the 
same way, he has no evidence of pardon? You teach a 
sinner that he must comply with the conditions of par- 
don in order to obtain it ; why not the Christian ? But in 
each case you stultify yourselves ; for, instead of making 
the fact that they have complied with these conditions, and 
can thus claim God's promise — an evidence of pardon, 
you teach them to rely on their feelings as the proof. Upon 
your principles, a mourning bench ought to be as regular 
an institution of God's house as either prayer or praise. 
A Christian needs it as much as any one, were you con- 
sistent. 

But, let us ask, on what is a sinner to rely, according to 
the Scriptures? A knowledge that he has complied with 



GETTING RELIGION. 241 

the conditions imposed upon him by Heaven alone ; and upon 
the promise of God, sincerely believed, that upon this 
compliance he shall be pardoned. Now, did you teach thus, 
this would not have been written. But this you dare 
not do. You are afraid to tell your mourners what Peter 
told his. If the feelings obtained at the altar be the 
witness of the Spirit really, then a direct revelation is 
made to each individual receiving it ; and a Divine revela- 
tion of this sort is of equal authority with any other. The 
Divine Volume is not superior to it ; and, alas ! with mul- 
titudes it is inferior. How many appeal to these feelings a 
hundred times, while they refer to the New Testament once. 
They have, indeed, little use for the written word, since they 
refuse to do what the Spirit there commands, and are 
governed by what they think that Spirit, without the word, 
made them feel, thus bringing the Divine Spirit into conflict 
with itself. 

All this time, however, we forgot our mourning friend C, 
who is not yet through, and, perhaps, never will be. 
How happens it that B. believes himself to be pardoned, 
while C. does not? Perhaps he has more native credulity! 
Perhaps something was said to B. that was not said to C. , 
or his mind may have received the same things differently. 
His own reflections on what he had done, or the teaching 
of the preacher, that he was just in the condition the 
Lord required in order to pardon, may have led his temp- 
est-tossed soul to seize upon the promises something after 
this style: Christ says: ''Ask and ye shall receive.*' I 
have asked. ' ' Seek and you shall find. ' ' I have sought. 
" Knock and it will be opened unto you.'* I have knocked. 
" In the day that though seekest me with thy whole heart, I 
will be found of thee." With my whole heart I have 
sought. Therefore, having done this — having placed my- 

16 



242 casket's book, 

self just in the condition in which Christ has promised par- 
don, he is as good as his word, and I am pardoned. Or 
some soul-cheering revival song, by a hundred voices sung, 
sending its rich melody deep down into his anguished heart, 
threw off by its more than magic power a portion of the 
depressions under which he labored. Seizing upon this 
slight exuberance of spirits as evidence of pardon, the soul 
mounts up " higher and higher, in a chariot of fire, till the 
world, it lies under his feet." But it matters not how B. 
gets to believe he is pardoned: believe it he does, and 
must, in order to get happy. Poor C. can not believe that 
he is pardoned, and must be damned. He ought not to be- 
lieve it, yet he must be condemned according to this popu- 
lar theory of pardon. 

It may be of some comfort to all this class of mourners, 
to know that one humble heart deeply sympathizes with 
them — one brother to the whole race of fallen man; far 
away from home and loved ones, in his lonely study, at mid- 
night's solemn hour, in sight of the judgment-seat, with 
all the fearful responsibilities of teaching falsely before 
him ; in the face of the orthodox world, and the teachings 
and practices of the times, is making this effort for their 
benefit, that they may not be left to mourn through life in 
the hands of such comforters as Job's, and finally die with- 
out the knowledge of pardon, or in the possession of the 
unspeakable joys of the hope of the Gospel. 

Suppose that C, just as he is, under the influence of faith 
and repentance, had arisen, as did Saul of Tarsus, and had 
obeyed the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, as B. did 
the directions of the preacher, and had been baptized, with- 
out the transition of feeling, called, for want of a Scriptural 
name, " getting religion ; " or had he and B. been buried at 
the same time with the Lord in baptism, having confessed 



GETTING RELIGION. 243 

Christ with their mouths, and believed in their hearts that 
God had raised him from the dead, who will say that C. is 
not as thoroughly a Christian as B. , notwithstanding all the 
ado that was made over B. 

Now, ye preachers ! come up to the issue, and affirm that, 
in the light of the New Testament, their transition of feel- 
ing is essential to pardon — to a knowledge of pardon, or 
is an evidence of pardon, in whole or in part ; and you 
unchristianize many of the best members in all your 
churches ; for they cannot tell at what time, if ever, their 
sins were pardoned. We meet the issue boldly, moreover, 
and deny that conversion, in any Scriptural sense, takes 
place at that point of the process, except in the feelings — 
as from sorrow to joy — such a conversion as the Hindoo 
mother experiences, or the Catholic penitent, or the people 
in the North when the reported victory proved to have been 
a defeat. These feelings, of course, are more intense, on ac- 
count of the difference of what is believed. 

At that moment, we say, when the supposed transition 
occurs, conversion does not take place, either in heart, in 
life, in the state, in the mind, or in person. For the heart 
is changed by faith in Christ, and not by faith in pardon. 
The mourner believes in and loves Christ before he goes 
to the anxious seat. The life is converted by repent- 
ance — that is, a sorrow for sin, and a thorough turning 
away from it in heart ; a death to sin. And was he not sorry 
for sin ; did he not turn away from sin when he first went 
forward ; and was he not then dead to sin, when he wept 
and mourned as a sinner ? — when he made an effort, under 
false directions, to get rid of his sins? His life, moreover, 
was not changed at the transition of his feelings, but when he 
acted upon the invitation to go to the bench to get rid of his 
sins. And surely no man is so mad, theologically, as to affirm 



244 casket's book. 

that the state is changed at that moment ; for all creeds, from 
proud, imperious Rome to Salt Lake City, hold and teach that 
baptism changes the state. The heart by faith, the life by 
repentance, the person by baptism, are consecrated to Christ ; 
but neither at the point where it is preached, sung, and be- 
lieved that a convert to God or Christ is made. Poor 
mourning C. was as fully converted in heart and life as was 
rejoicing B. ; but neither of them had changed his state in 
Christ's appointed way. B. claimed all the promises outside 
of Christ's kingdom that were made to those within it. May 
we not hope that C.'s superior modesty had somewhat to do 
with his failure ? 

All denominations teach that baptism is the door into 
Christ's visible kingdom — that it is the initiatory rite by 
which his Church is entered. This is by many denied ; but 
supposing it to be so, B. is in the kingdom of Satan, ruled 
over by the prince of the power of the air ; and yet his 
glorious conversion — another wonder in this system of won- 
derful delusions — has taken place before he has entered that 
kingdom ! He has not been *' translated " — that is, borne 
over " into the kingdom of God's dear Son ! " 

What now are we taught that in this kingdom we may find ? 
Pardon, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit itself, 
justification, sanctification, adoption, redemption — all in 
Christ, and by Christ, are promised to those who obey him, 
and are baptized into him, together with eternal life to the 
faithful unto death. 

But B. is taught and believes that pardon, peace, the Holy 
Spirit, and the promise of eternal life are his while yet in the 
kingdom of the "wicked one." Were this true, he was a 
great simpleton to leave that kingdom ; and to invite him to 
enter another through the door of baptism is to insult his 
religious sense, assuming that he has any left after having 



GETTING BELIGION. 245 

passed such an ordeal. Suppose him to say to these savans 
in divinity, when they urge him to be baptized into Christ's 
kingdom; *' Brethren, what is there in that kingdom not 
already mine? '* What could they reply? They enumerate 
the " spiritual blessings to be enjoyed in the heavenly places 
in Jesus Christ! " '' Pardon," say they. *' Why! I have 
this,'* he replies, *' in what you say is the kingdom of the 
devil! " ''Peace.'* " That's mine too.'' ''Joy in the Holy 
Spirit!" "I have joy unspeakable and full of glory. Do 
you not remember my shouts of rejoicing when I was con- 
verted?" "Well!" says the perplexed divine, "it is a 
command, and you must obey it, whether you get any bless- 
ing by coming into the kingdom or not. Besides, it is to be 
done for ' the answer of a good conscience.' " "I already 
possess the answer of a good conscience," replies the con- 
vert — "I got religion," "Never mind," adds the 
preacher ; ' ' come along and submit to this initiatory rite ; 
there are Christians in the Church." " So there are out of 
it — and all Christians were once outside of it ; and had they 
had sense enough to remain in the kingdom where they be- 
came Christians we should not have been bothered with this 
kingdom of which you speak, and into which you seem so 
anxious that 1 shall enter. I thank you for your interest in 
me, but prefer remaining where I have done so well ; and, 
as nothing is to be gained by entering it, it is not worth 
whUeto put myself to any trouble about it." 

It is my unprejudiced judgment, after a large acquaint- 
ance with heathen ceremonies, and with the initiatory rites 
of human invention, that . in neither, nor in all of them 
together, is there so poor, unmeaning, worthless, or pitiful a 
ceremony as baptism, as now taught and practiced by the 
sectarian schools, or one that promises so little to the 
initiated. It does not rise to the dignity of a poor bur- 



246 casket's book. 

lesque — a miserable farce, badly gotten up and worse 
played. After all the mock solemnity attending its admin- 
istration, even among the Baptists, who immerse into the 
awful name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the baptized 
person is no wiser, no better, no happier, and has attained 
to nothing but to be denominated a Baptist. If this is all 
our Lord intended by this institution, a more signal failure 
never distinguished any system. Baptists ought to change 
their teachings on the design of baptism, or ought to quit 
baptizing — utterly ashamed of their folly. To make the 
manner essential, while the act itself is non-essential, is too 
bad. 

But in considering briefly the evils attendant upon this 
human system I must close. And first : Let us look into the 
Churches. Here we find a large class halting and vacillating 
between hope and fear. Strangers are they to the steady 
flow of joy to which a Christian is entitled, and which he 
would realize if taught to rest on God' s promise and his oath in- 
stead of hisown feelings as evidence of pardon. They sing : 

" 'Tis a point I long to know, 
Oft it causes anxious thought ; 
Do I love the Lord or no? 
Am I his or am I not? " 

A man who has gone through a regular courtship, and has 
been long married to the wife of his choice, might as reason- 
ably sing, instead of the last lines : 

** Do I love my wife or no? 
Am I hers or am I not? " 

It is their privilege, if converted to Christ, to sing: 

" How happy are they who their Savior obey." 

Many hymns have been composed to meet the condition of 
these low-spirited people, as sad as refrains from the land of 



GETTING RELIGION. 247 

death, and as discordant on the ears of well taught Chris- 
tians as the raven's croak. They are locked up with John 
Bunyan in the castle of Giant Despair, or are floudering in 
the slough of despondency. Neither he nor they had any 
business there. Sorry lives these for Christians to lead! 
They deserve the warmest sympathy of the good. 

Next : We enter the world. 

How many thousands of the best persons here would yield 
hearty obedience to the Lord's will, but fear to trust his word, 
on account of the influence this pernicious system of con- 
version at the mourner's bench has exerted over them. They 
have too much sense to go there ; and can go nowhere except 
to retired places in which the same great error reigns. Were 
they taught that they may find what they seek by coming to 
the places where God has recorded his name, and where he 
has promised to meet with them and to bless them, they need 
not live without religious hope, or die without spiritual joys. 
Who will answer for these precious souls ; who for the large 
crop of infidelity annually grown from this hot-bed of 
delusion? 

Next comes before us another class on whom its crushing 
weight falls fearfully : those who went with hoping hearts 
to weep and pray that joy to them might come ; but as oft 
returned without comfort, till they gave up, fearing that they 
were reprobate, because they could not feel as others felt, 
and in the mantle of despair enwrapped themselves to await 
the final doom. God pity them ! and pity those who thus 
delude them, for they are also blind. 

Last of all, we enter houses built for those who have lost 
the path of mental light, and have wandered far into the black 
darkness. Seest thou that wreck of womanhood ! Once she 
walked her father's halls with steps as lithe and light as the 



248 casket's book. 

wild gazelle's. Her form was perfect as was ever cast in 
human mold. From her large and lustrous orbs the light of 
reason flashed. Over her parian brow dark tresses twined 
like threads of clouds around a star. Her cheeks were 
tinged with the glow of health ; her coral lips, half parted, as 
though they caught a smile from heaven. Oh ! she was a 
child of flowers and of song, and gladdened every heart. 
Her doting father's pride, her mother's loving joy ! But in 
an evil hour she, at this modern idol, bowed and wept, and 
prayed and sighed, for months — weary sorrowing months — 
until reason reeled and fell ! High intellectual gifts were 
lost, and madness seized the brain which once had throbbed 
at the magic touch of genius. No joyous shout to heaven 
ascends, but, instead, a wail of anguished woe — a maniac's 
shriek — which makes the heart stand still, and turns the 
cheek of darkness pale. Look on her well ! You did the 
work ! In those eyes the fires of madness brightly burn ; 
the cheeks are pale, and bathed in scalding tears ; the step 
is languid, save when under delirium's power! You ran 
those great deep furrows across that throbbing brow with 
the plowshare of agony! Your system did it. One-half 
the insane in the asylums of our land are the victims of re- 
ligious frenzy. Look on this dark but faithful picture, and 
repent! Banish your idol from God's temple, that you may 
be forgiven these fearful wrongs ! 

And now, dear reader, having shown that, without contro- 
versy, our feelings are no evidence of pardon, nothing re- 
mains but to place before you that on which you may rely 
with faith unshaken, a witness that always is truthful — 
God's holy word. But little need now be said to show how 
this divine evidence exerts its power. It may be remarked, 
however, that all agree that remission of sins is conditional. 



GETTING RELIGION. 249 

What the conditions are is the point in dispute. Some affirm 
the condition to be infant baptism, which removes the effect 
of original sin — as though infants did not die! Others 
make faith the sole condition ; and yet attribute justification 
to the ''righteousness of Christ imputed," and of course 
not to faith. Others rely on penitence for forgiveness, while 
the New Testament ascribes it to, first, an unfeigned faith 
in the personal and official anointed one — the Lord Jesus 
Christ — manifested by a sincere repentance for a past faith- 
less life ; resulting in a turning from sin and ourselves to the 
Christ ; a confession of this Christ before men, and the tak- 
ing upon ourselves, in baptism, of that name through which 
alone remission is secured. " I write unto you, little chil- 
dren," says John, " because your sins are forgiven you on 
account of His name." 

We may repeat: By faith we surrender our hearts to 
Christ, and receive Him in return. " I in you and you in 
me." By repentance our whole lives are changed. We be- 
come dead to sin and alive unto godliness. Our lives are 
given to God, since we were buried with Christ in baptism 
into death, and arose with Him therein to walk in a new life. 
Thus the entire man — inner and outer, body, soul, and 
spirit — is consecrated to Christ. This being the case, we 
have the word and the oath — '* two immutable things in 
which it is impossible for God to lie, that we may have 
strong consolation who have fled for refuge" — not to the 
prescriptions of a preacher, but " to lay hold on the hope 
set before us " in the Gospel. In other words, we have the 
assurance that the truthful word of Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit gives when it declares, in language that needs no in- 
terpretation : "He that believeth and is baptized shall be 
saved." We take God at his word, obey His command and 
are happy "in the full assurance of faith." 



250 . casket's book. 

Reader, have you believed, with all your heart, upon the 
*' testimony that God has given of His Son " that " Jesus is 
the Christ the Son of the living God? " Have you sincerely 
acknowledged the sin committed in not having heretofore 
believed in Him ? Have you confessed Him as the Christ 
before men? Have you been baptized in His name, and 
into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Spirit? The Divine Government has extended its am- 
nesty to you, or there is no truth in God's promise. In that 
case the Bible is a fable, religion is a dream, all is dark- 
ness ; and man is "without hope and without God in the 
world.'' 

I have not in this discourse questioned the sincerity, the 
devotion, the piety, much less the zeal, of such as ''get 
religion," as they imagine, in the unhallowed and unscript- 
ural way above animadverted on. But they are none the 
better for the process to which the " cunning craftiness " of 
those who ought to lead them more truthfully has subjected 
them — perhaps none the worse. They may, nevertheless, 
be prevented thus from ' ' obeying the truth through the 
spirit," and an irreparable injury they thus must suffer. 
Not so much for those who have succeeded as for those 
who have failed, has the writer undertaken the task now 
brought to a close. These pages have been produced under 
the pressure of a solemn duty to the Church and the world ; 
and may the Great Head of the Church attend this humble 
effort to establish truth and to dissipate error. 

Should any preacher feel aggrieved by the manner in 
which his system has been handled, and has confidence in 
his ability to maintain its divine authority, or even its ne- 
cessity as a means of converting men to Christ, he may 
choose his time and place to discuss the claims of the anx- 



GETTING BELIGION. .251 

ious seat to public confidence. And that he may feel as- 
sured that the debate will be conducted in a pleasant and 
gentlemanly manner on my part, I need not say that I have 
engaged in public discussions, with some of the best minds 
of the day, extending through from four to seven days, and 
no unkind feelings have been, so far as known to me, en- 
gendered or retained on either side. 




^* 



CHAPTBE XIX. 

THE DIRECT AND THE INDIRECT. 

^/HERE are, and have been for the last half cen- 
tury, two ideas struggling for supremacy in the 
religious world ; two theories of spiritualistic influ- 
ence in conviction and conversion. The one 



direct, and the other indirect ; the abstract operation on the 
heart of the sinnea* without media ; and the operation only 
through his Word. So much has been preached, ar- 
gued in debate, and written on the subject, that the reader 
is ready to ask, Can anything more be said? Perhaps 
not ! But it may be said in a different way. The subject 
may be looked at from standpoints not before assumed, 
and more light may be thrown upon it. There are sev- 
eral features of the subject that seem to have been entirely 
overlooked; or, if not overlooked, carelessly passed by. 
Those opposed to the popular theory of direct or abstract 
influence have failed to trace the idea to its origin; have 
taken it for granted that as it is a religious idea, if it is 
not taught in the Bible, it entered the mind of Bible readers 
and thinkers through misunderstanding what they read. 
This admission, tacitly granted, clothes the dogma with 
more respectability than it ever merited. It at least admits 
that there are some things said in the Bible susceptible of 
such a construction — something that suggested the thought 
that the influence was direct. Be not startled when I say, 
that after a patient study of the whole subject for more 
(252) 



THE DIRECT AND THE INDIRECT. 253 

than forty years, I am fully satisfied that had no other 
book been read, the idea would not have been in the world 
to-day. Had the religious world not dabbled in the muddy 
pools of heathen mythology, instead of bathing in the pure, 
clear waters of Bibliology, the church and world would have 
escaped this the bitterest and most withering curse. For, of 
all the false doctrines ever gotten up by men or devils for the 
work of destruction to the joy of God's people, for the 
prevention of sinners coming to Christ, for fostering and 
developing ignorance, superstition, bigotry, intolerance, and 
persecution, it stands unrivaled. This we shall see when 
we reach the chapter of evils. I mention a single one in 
passing. Let the most stupid member of the most stupid 
church get into his stupid head, the notion that he has a di- 
rect spiritual impression in regard to any doctrine, fact, 
proposition, or thing, and all the philosophers, prophets? 
and apostles put together could not drive a different idea 
into his head edgeways in a thousand years. He is simply 
a hopeless fool on that subject, and there is no chance to 
convince him that he is mistaken, no more than there would 
be if his head were cut off and rolled ten feet from his 
body. If you can not chase that idea out, rout it, kill it, 
upset the whole theory of direct importation of ideas, you 
are wasting time and toil for nought. You might as well 
be trying to overturn the Eocky Mountains with a broken 
corn-stalk, capsize Gibraltar with a broom-straw, tie up a 
cyclone with a strand of a spider's web, as to try to teach 
him anything on that subject. And the reason why this is 
bound to be so lies right on the surface of the thing itself. 
It is simply a conflict between knowledge on his part and 
faith ; and when these two are the champions in a conflict, 
it does not require the eye of a philosopher to see before- 
hand the result of the fight. Take the idea of a special call 



254 casket's book. 

to the ministry as a specimen. I may lay before one certain 
proof that he is mistaken ; may bring prophetic and apos- 
tolic declarations that can not be misunderstood. But 
what would it all amount to ? Nothing, of course, unless he 
believed it ; and how can he believe it when he knows to the 
contrary ? The impression the Holy Spirit is trying to make 
on his mind that he is not called, is indirect ; the impression 
in his mind is direct. The witness testifying that he is not 
called, is outside of him ; the witness testifying that he is 
called, is inside ? He claims and stands by the affirmation 
of the direct. 

Isaiah and Paul could claim no more. Suppose Paul says 
to him, substantially : "It has been revealed to me by the 
Holy Spirit that you are not called." *' How was it re- 
vealed, Bro. Paul? By a direct impression, an abstract 
influence!" "Look, here, then, my dear old apostolic 
brother, don't you know that I received my call in precisely 
the same way, and by the same spirit? If I did not, then, 
I have egregiously fooled myself, the church, and the 
world. Even if I admit that you received it, as you claim, 
which I don't like to deny, since you are an apostle, are you 
not as likely to be mistaken as I? And if you did get the 
revelation, to you it was direct, while to me your revelation 
is indirect ; it is through you ; mine to me is direct ; and 
how can I reject the direct, and receive the indirect? I 
could not if I would, and would not if I could. If I give 
up the direct testimony of the Spirit in reference to my call, 
then I will have to give it up in regard to the pardon of my 
sins — my getting religion and justification the moment I 
believed. In fact, it knocks the whole fabric, foundation 
and all, into infinitesimal fragments ! Now, Bro. Paul, you 
are a profound logician, but I say to you as we say to these 
' Campbellites,' who, I am sorry to say, are troubling us on 



THE DIRECT AND THE INDIRECT. 255 

this subject, that I would not give what I feel in my heart 
for all your reasonings, all your Biblical deliverances. As 
well try to prove to us that we did not burn our finger, by 
arguing that fire is not hot, and that flesh will not burn ! 
Why, what we know, we know." Such talk may be heard 
all over the orthodox world. 

I repeat, that until the idea of direct impressions is aban- 
doned — in part and as a whole — there is an insurmountable 
mental obstacle to hinder the entrance of truth. The man has 
as effectually closed up the avenue to understanding the 
subject as though he had annihilated his very power of 
thought. All proof that men or angels might bring could 
have no influence on his mind, until he drive the idea out, 
and send it back to the devil, whence it came. Perhaps, if 
we can follow this idea of direct impressions back as far as 
it can be traced in history, sacred and profane, some light 
may fall upon it. 

In examining sacred history, I fail to find when the Holy 
Spirit ever promised to enlighten the mind, or to purify the 
heart by direct impressions ; I fail to find a case in which it 
was done ; I fail to find either the word or idea in all that 
the Spirit ever said or did ; I fail to find any fact that impels 
to the conclusion that it was possibly or probably done in 
that way. The links in the chain of circumstantial evidence 
do not connect when you try to bind this doctrine by any 
given cases. 

I am willing that the advocates of the theory may select 
their cases ; and as there is no positive evidence, we will 
throw it on the facts in each case, the circumstances all con- 
nected with, entering into, and making up the case — from 
these we infer how it was done. 

If you affirm that it was by direct impressions, the burden 
of proof is on your shoulders, and your proof must be such 



256 casket's book. 

as to preclude the possibility of any other hypothesis being 
true. There must be no room left for a reasonable doubt. 
It will not be sufficient to prove that it might or could have 
been done in that way. But your proof must show that it 
was so done. This can only be shown by clear demonstra- 
tion that it could not have been done in any other way. 

This is the rule of civil law, where life is in jeopardy ! 
How much more important when spiritual and eternal life 
are involved! For if the doctrine be false, oh! how many 
have fallen over it to rise no more. How many millions in 
our Gospel-lighted land are dreaming over it now, and are 
waiting for those impressions, sung about, prayed for, 
preached, and promised. 

Suppose you select your case, and let us see how far we 
can agree. First, we can agree as to time, place, and per- 
son ; as to the person who is to communicate the idea or 
ideas ; the person to whom the communication is made ; what 
was communicated, and its design. There is but one other 
element entering into and making up the sum total of all 
cases ; that is, How was it done ? Here we part ; you say it 
was by direct impression — I deny ! 

I admit that there are many cases about which nothing is 
said as to the how ; but you have no more right to these 
than I ; you have no more right to infer from the silence of 
the book than I have. Exceedingly liberal with you, I will 
not exclude you from the field of the miraculous ; you may 
have the benefit of gleanings from all fields for your proof, 
ordinary and extraordinary, natural and supernatural. Now, 
will you select the case of a prophet who received ideas 
miraculously? I agree with you that he did, and that they 
were imparted by the Holy Spirit. But how ? You affirm 
by direct impression. I deny it, and demand the proof ! 
On what fact in the case do you rely to prove that it was 



THE DIRECT AND THE INDIRECT. 257 

done in that way? No prophet ever said it was, nor even 
threw out a hint in that direction. And I can find no fact 
in any given case, either in time, place, persons, or sur- 
roundings, that would lead to any such conclusion. At this 
point, I suggest the following facts, which interpose them- 
selves in the way of direct impressions: First. The five 
senses are the avenues through which the mind is reached. 
Through these thought is conveyed, and ideas aie awakened. 
If it is claimed that power miraculous can act in contraven- 
tion of said law, granted ; but then it devolves upon those 
invoking that power to show that the ideas could not be 
communicated in harmony with the natural law ; that neces- 
sity existed in the case for setting aside the law. Second. 
Man is so created in his mental organism that he thinks in 
words, or signs of ideas addressed to his senses, and he can 
no more think in any other way than he can suspend the law 
of gravitation. It requires no psychological argument to 
prove this. Each man can test its truth by experiment. 
The thought and word are simultaneously born in the mind. 
Please try to think a moment without words ! 

Ideas, truths, thoughts, are the elements of the Christian 
religion. If this law holds good, then all the ideas or 
thoughts in that religion must of necessity be conveyed to 
the mind through words or signs of ideas. For how else is 
it possible to get an idea into a mind that can not think 
except in words ? Miraculous power could doit! But, in 
only one way, and that by the reconstruction of the mind ; 
by a new mental creation. Add to this another fact, that 
since the Holy Spirit uttered its last word through the Apostle 
John on the Isle of Patmos, there has not been a single ad- 
ditional spiritual idea communicated to the world. To this 
add the undenied and the undeniable fact, that Spirit did 
make its revelations in this way ; and if it made any in this 

17 



258 casket's book. 

way, why not all? If you say the Spirit ever made com- 
munication in any other way, please point to the time, place, 
and person ; and then we will have all the data from which 
to settle the question at issue. Let us now take a clear and 
well defined case of spiritual Impartation of ideas. Such 
a case is that of the conversion of Cornelius. And first, 
God desires to get certain ideas into his mind. Now, had 
it been possible for God to have imparted to him the ideas 
in your way, what a saving of time, labor, and trouble there 
would have been ! God could just have made the impression 
on his mind directly by the Holy Spirit that his prayers had 
been heard, and his alms were held in remembrance ; could 
have impressed upon his mind what he was to believe and 
do in order to be saved. This would have obviated the 
necessity of the angel visitation. Then had he made the 
impression on the mind of him to whom the keys were given 
to go and unlock the doors of the kingdom and admit the 
Gentiles, it would have saved the journey of the messengers 
sent to Peter. But let us pass by these intermediate steps — 
simply stating the fact that the angel imparted the ideas which 
it brought down from heaven in words ; that the message of 
Cornelius was delivered in words ; and we hasten on to find 
the Apostle on the housetop. God first wanted to get the 
idea into Peter's Jewish head that he and his nation were no 
better than the despised Gentiles, and that the time had come 
for their salvation. How does he approach the mind of 
Peter? By direct impressions? No; by indirect. By 
trampling upon his own unchangeable laws of mind ? No ; 
but in perfect accord with them. First, by signs of ideas, 
addressed to his eyes, in the sheet let down from heaven. 
Second, by words, addressed to his ears: "Arise, Peter, 
slay and eat ;" " What God hath cleansed call not thou com- 
mon or unclean! " While Peter was pondering over the 



THE DIRECT AND THE INDIRECT. 259 

vision, not yet comprehending what it all meant, the mes- 
sengers arrive and discharge their duty; and still Peter 
doubts. And now comes the point that lays to rest the issue 
involved. Some banner, waving over this battle-field, goes 
down and trails in the dust, flaunts its folds no more in the 
breezes of heaven. For we have unmistakably that which 
was done, who did it, where it was done, when it was done, on 
whom it was done, how it was done, and why it was done. It 
was done by the Holy Spirit ; an idea was revealed to the 
mind of Peter. How? By direct impression? No! a 
thousand times no ! It was by words : "And the spirit bade 
me go with them, nothing doubting." Is there a thinker on 
this green carpeted earth that will try to construe this into a 
direct impression ? That would be the pitiable assumption 
of helpless stupidity. One other thought and the case is 
fully developed — God wished to get another idea into 
Peter's mind, that the Gentiles were to be baptized into 
Christ. Peter tells how this truth was communicated. It 
came through his eyes and ears : " He gave the like gift that 
he gave to us at the beginning," a gift seen ; and they heard 
them speak in tongues, and magnify God. Then said Peter: 
"Who can forbid water, that these should not be bap- 
tized." The question under consideration is not what God, 
Christ, and the Holy Spirit do ; but how it is done. Is it 
direct or indirect? Is it without words, or signs of ideas ; 
or is it through them ? Can we not agree upon a rule of in- 
terpretation — by which the question can be fairly investi- 
gated, and a final and satisfactory conclusion reached. I 
suggest the following : That whenever the Bible says any 
thing was done by Father, Son or Holy Spirit, if it says it 
was direct, and you find a great number of things thus done, 
then, when things are said to be done, and no mention of how 
they were done — you have a just right to claim that they, 



260 CASKEY*S BOOK. 

too, were done in that way. You have established the rule 
by an induction of cases ; and then comes in the rule, uni- 
versally adopted, that the doubtful must be made to conform 
to the certain, the obscu^^e to the clear. If any plead an ex- 
ception he must show something in the thing done that 
precludes the possibility of its having been done in the 
regular way. Are you willing to a^dopt the rule ? If not, 
you are a coward, and are afraid of the light. If you adopt 
the rule, of course it must work both ways. If I, by an 
induction of things done, show that the word was used as the 
instrument, then all things said to be done, with nothing said 
as to the how, must be understood to have been done in that 
way — unless you can show from the nature of the case that 
it is impossible for it to be done in that way. I do not think 
an angel could submit a rule more fair by which to settle any 
question. If you dare adopt it, your Ism is settled forever ; 
your whole orthodox hosts are put to ignominious flight with- 
out firing a gun ; for you can not find one single thing said 
by the Book to have ever been done by either in that way ; 
no effect produced ; no result growing out of ; no conse- 
quences flowing from ; no ideas imparted to the mind ; 
no purity engendered in the heart; no impression made 
on the world of mind hy direct impression. But in 
all cases where the blessed Book tells us of the how it 
was done through the word. And is it not the most pro- 
foundly astonishing fact in all the history of time that a mere 
myth should have held sway over the world of thought for 
ages on ages — enslaving the great minds of the best of earth- 
born thinkers. A peculiar influence exerted of which the 
Bible says not a single word. Creation dawns i>pon us in its 
grand opening chapter, telling us what was done, who did it, 
and how. In the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth — the Holy Spirit and tlie Word — which after- 



THE DIRECT AND THE INDIEECT. 261 

wards "became flesh and dwelt among us. How? "■ He spake 
and it was done. " "He commanded and it stood fast. ' ' All 
things we are told were created by the word of his power. 
" The spirit moved upon the face of the deep ; and God said 
Let there be light, and there was light !" His word was His 
own chosen instrumentality through which He put forth His 
power. And thus on, on through all the ages ; all He did, 
in all departments of his worlds, mental, moral, and physical. 
No impression was ever made on either without His word. 
His wisdom, goodness, love, and power are put forth in His 
word. This doctrine of direct influence dishonors the Holy 
Spirit ; converts it into a poor dumb thing ; makes it not 
really an equal with the dumb, for they can convey their 
thoughts in signs of ideas. That it did impart its thoughts 
through signs and words is admitted by all. " God also bear- 
ing them witness, both in signs and wonders, and divers 
miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit — according to his own 
will." God sent out his word to accomplish that whereunto 
he sent it ; so did the Son, and so did the Holy Spirit. God 
is not dishonored by being charged with doubting the 
potency and power of His own word ; nor the Son. This is 
reserved for the Holy Spirit ; so little faith has it in what it 
says. According to this doctrine it does not expect anybody 
to believe one word of all it has said or done unless it follows 
along after it, and applies it ! Why apply this dishonoring 
thought to the Spirit and not to the Father and Son ? And 
why not apply it to man ; and after He sends His word by 
letter have him under necessity to accompany it in order to 
make it effectual ! Or if He utters it and leaves it — it falls 
dead? From whence came such an absurd and ridiculous 
idea? It is unworthy of thoughtful men and women ; it has 
no countenance in the Bible — the word of God. 




CHAPTEE XX. 

THE DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 

No. 2.. 

O and ask the Christ how the Holy Spirit was to get 
:5s ideas of himself into the minds of his disciples ? He 
f said to them : "He shall bring to your minds all 
'I things, whatsoever I have told you. He shall take 
of the things of the Father and of mine, and show the rest 
to you. He shall not speak of himself, but that which he 
heareth ; he shall speak and show you things to come. Take 
no thought what ye shall say when ye are brought before 
rulers and magistrates. I will give you words in the self- 
same hour." 

Is there any hint, promise, or intimation in all this that a 
single thought should be given to them by direct impression 
without words? Not one! They are communicated indi- 
rectly, not directly, through media, not without. 

Go ask the prophets how the knowledge of the on coming 
grand events was imparted to them. The word of the Lord 
came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying : ' ' Speak unto the 
children of Israel, Thus saith the Lord! " 

Visions grand, beautiful, and sublime, rolled up before the 
vision of the enrapt Ezekiel. He heard the whirlwind, and 
listened to the storm ; he heard the still small voice, and 
understood what it said; he saw the fiery wheels within 
wheels. 

Ask the beloved Daniel how so many great and imperish- 
able ideas came trooping into his mind ? and he will unfold 
(^62) 



DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 263 

to you the dreams he had — the sights he saw ■ — the words 
he heard. He will answer that the Great God, by his Holy 
Spirit, approached his mind through his own created ave- 
nues — in harmony with, and not in contravention of, his 
own immutable laws. 

Go ask the beloved disciple John, who leaned his weary 
head on the Master's breast, and looked up into his godly 
face with loving, womanish eyes — how he gathered into his 
mind, on the lonely and desolate Isle of Patmos, those awful 
yet glorious thoughts of the church and the world, of 
heaven and hell, the destiny of the saved, the lost, of men 
and devils? 

The scroll of time was unrolled, and the last word in- 
scribed on its pages were read. Was there a single thought 
among them all, by direct impression made? No, not even 
the shadow of an idea ! John heard ; he saw. He saw the 
New Jerusalem come down from God out of heaven. He 
saw the dead, small and great, stand before God ; heard the 
voice of the seven last thunders of the bolt that broke into 
fragments our old rock-framed world ; the sound of the 
trump that waked up the sleeping dead came re-sounding 
across the vast expanse of waters ; he saw the entrance of 
the redeemed hosts that had come up from the coral reefs of 
the deep sea, the once enshrouded and uncoflined dead — 
and from their graves all over the world of land ; he saw 
them pass through the pearly gates into the city of God. 
Redemption's song was as distinctly heard by him as it will 
be when at last he joins his voice in the song and the chorus 
which shall fill the temple of the universe with sublimer 
music than that of the spheres — or the song of stars and 
shouts of the sons of God! He heard the wild wail of 
the lost, the cry for rocks and mountains to fall and hide 
them from the face of him who sat upon the throne. Having 



264 casket's book. 

now traced the how of the Holy Spirit's communications 
from Genesis to Revelation, and found that in all cases, ordi- 
nary and extraordinary, natural or supernatural, without one 
exception, it has been by words or signs of idea's, or by some- 
thing seen or heard. We find no loop-hole through which the 
advocates of the direct theory can possibly crawl out of 
their absurd position. They are compelled to throw their 
theory on those cases in which the Bible is profoundly silent 
as to the how, and go to guessing that it was by direct im- 
pressions, thus violating all recognized rules of interpreta- 
tion. Having, as we think, driven it away from the Bible, 
and shown that the book could not have given birth to it, 
we are led by necessity to look elsewhere for its origin. To 
do this we will have to grope our way back into the mist and 
fog of heathen mythology — the birthplace of nine-^tenths of 
the errors with which Rome, Protestantism, and the world 
have been and are now cursed. From their heathen origins 
they flow into Catholicism, spread into Protestantism; 
through them into the world, withering its brightest flowers, 
destroying its happiness, sowing broadcast the seeds of 
infidelity, dishonoring God, cursing man. We find this 
dogma originating in the unhallowed ambition of an abomin- 
able heathen priesthood. Looking around for means by 
which to lift themselves above their fellows, they seized 
upon the idea of direct impressions made upon their minds 
and hearts by their gods — direct revelations. This brought 
the whole world of worshipers to their feet. This gave 
them sanctity, influence, and power, such as is now acquired 
in part by those who can get a foolish church to believe that 
they are specially called and sent to preach by direct impres- 
sion. The priesthood of Rome, seeing the power that was 
in it, grasped it with greed and delight, and made the 
Christian's God do for them as absurd and ridiculous a thing 



DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 265 

as the gods of the heathen had done for their priests. The 
heathen priest only claimed direct impressions ; while the 
Catholic priest claimed that his God had first made the im- 
pression through words, and then for fear that he might 
have made a mistake, or for some other reason, he makes it 
direct without words ! If the direct is a duplicate of the 
indirect, it is a work of supererogation and an act of folly. If 
it differs from, or is in opposition to, then one or the other 
is false. One or the other must go under ! Unfortunately, 
at all times, in all places, and with all persons, wherever and 
whenever the two come in conflict, as they often do, that 
which is said must yield to that which is felt. The indirect 
is compelled to submit to the direct ! 

At this period in the history of the development of this 
dogma, the laitj^, so-called, knew nothing about it — claimed 
no such impressions. They went to the priest to learn 
through his direct what God meant by the indirect. Finally 
it resulted in their giving up the indirect altogether and in 
being governed in faith and practice by the priests direct and 
alone ! 

So they sold out the right of private judgment — gave it 
up that they were a set of natural born and educated f oo'ls, 
graduates from the college of religious ignorance ; that they 
could not understand anything that God had said of doc- 
trine ; would quit trying, and give up to the priests to do 
their thinking for them, and for which they would pay. Many 
of them know that they have twice as much sense on all 
other subjects as the narrow-minded priest ; yet, this doc- 
trine of direct impressions has so blinded their minds as to 
cause them to part with the highest privilege and richest 
blessing God has ever conferred on man. They claim no 
direct impressions, and in this particular, Protestants 
have got a little ahead of their mother. But a trouble arose 



266 casket's book. 

after this direct impression became the property of the 
priesthood. Their direct impressions began not only to 
differ widely from the indirect in God's Word, but to differ 
as widely from each other ! An active warfare was begun 
among them over their direct impressions. This called to- 
gether an " Ecumenical Council " — not to decide on any- 
thing that the Holy Spirit had said, but on their conflicting 
direct impressions. They found that the whole theory would 
have to be abandoned, or a compromise would have to be 
made ; and this properly would have to pass from them and 
be concentrated, so that these conflicts could be avoided 
and the doctrine saved. The priests agreed on their part to 
relinquish all claim to direct impressions in interpreting the 
Scriptures in favor of the Pope ; that there should be but 
one mind among them infallibly guided into all truth ; that 
the Holy Spirit, by direct impression, should deal with one 
mind instead of many; and that they would humbly bow 
to his infallible decisions. The Pope, for and in considera- 
tion of this surrender of the claim on their part, agreed to 
confer upon them certain honors, dignities, privileges, and 
emoluments. The contract is signed, sealed, and delivered, 
and the work of infallibility is set afloat, and starts on its mis- 
sion of persecution, crime, groans, tears, blood, and death. 

The irrepressible conflict commences between the direct 
and the indirect. The indirect says : "Be pitiful, be kind, 
be courteous." The direct impresses upon mind and heart 
to be as pitiless, unkind, and cruel as the grave. But, to 
follow this docrine in all its devastation and wide-spreading 
ruin would be to unfold again the darkest, crime-covered 
pages in the history of this sin-stained and blood-dyed 
world of ours. 

I know of no crime so horrid that has not been committed 
is. the name of this dogma. Unfortunately it is not like 



DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 267 

Madame Roland's crimes, which were committed in the 
name of Liberty, for which Freedom was not responsible. 
These crimes grew out of the doctrine and it is responsible 
for them. 

I submit it as a universal truth, that whenever the direct 
and the indirect are brought into conflict, the banner of the 
indirect, with the influence of the Holy Spirit emblazoned 
on its folds, in the words of God, in letters that ought to 
brightly glow, cheer and warm into active emotion every 
heart, and control every thought and action — trails in the 
dust; while the banner with the single word '''■Direct^' in- 
scribed, proudly floats in victory's stirring breeze, and waves 
its folds over the very ramparts of Christianity. 

What power was it that moved the hand which applied 
the torch to burning piles of wood, on whose ascending red 
flames the spirits of martyred thousands rose heavenward ; 
built the gloomy walls of the Inquisition ; set in motion its 
hellish machinery, and kept it running during the long, 
long, black years of heathen. Papal, and Protestant reign 
and persecution? It was the hand of direct impression. 
From whence came the idea that it was their duty to tor- 
ture, slay, and kill? The Spirit tried to influence them to 
love, cherish, and protect. Did they not all persecute under 
the impression that it was their duty? Did not Calvin vote 
to put Servetus to death, believing that he was doing right ? 
Where did he get the idea? Not through the indirect, but 
the direct. If it be denied that he had the impression, and 
acted upon it, then you brand him as a foul murderer ; and 
all that ever shed blood on account of religious differences 
are branded with the same foul crime. Then they all stand 
before the world to-day as demons incarnate, as monsters — 
ruthless murderers. If you admit that these crimes were 
committed by poor, weak, erring men, laboring under the 



268 casket's book. 

influence of a false conception of duty, then you admit that 
the charge is true that direct influence shed every drop of 
martyred Iblood. Suppose no such an idea had been in the 
world, and all those popes and priests — those persecutors, 
papal or Protestant — had sought the guidance of the Spirit 
indirect through the "Word. Would one drop of blood 
ever have been shed ? Not one ! 

Without direct impression it is murder, and men do not 
commit that dark and damning deed without a shudder of 
horror thrilling their nerves. Good men can not. Such a 
man as the immortal Calvin, did he dream even that he had 
committed murder? He lived in the enjoyment of religion, 
as he understood it, died in faith ; carried his direct impres- 
sion of duty discharged in that act to his grave ; never felt 
or expressed regret. This dogma in religion is what higher 
law is in law, or in the way of the enforcement of law ; 
whenever "higher law" gets into politics, jurisprudence, or 
religion, the constitution containing the politics, the law 
books containing the law, and the Bible the religion, are as 
weak as a rope of sand, and will come no nearer binding a 
man to Constitution, Law, or Gospel than a gossamer thread 
would bind a steam engine ! 

But the reader may ask, What is ^^higherlawism? *' I re- 
ply, It is a feeling ! So is a direct impression. The Pope 
feels that there is a superior sanctity in virginity, feels that 
he is the religious and the political head, by divine right, of 
all out of doors, of the whole world, and the balance of 
mankind thrown in ; feels that immaculate conception is a 
great truth, and is ready to damn any man, for time and 
eternity, who calls it in question ; feels too that he ought to 
do it. That is, he has an impression that these things are 
all as true as Gospel. Direct impressions and feelings are 
synonymous. The Protestant preacher feels that he is called 



DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 269 

to preach ; that is, he had a direct impression. The Pope 
has as much right to his feelings as the preacher. The Pope 
beats the preacher in number and character of his impres- 
sions. Well, this is the preacher's own folly. Why don't 
he keep up with the Pope ; why does he dwarf the doctrine 
and himself by confining it to the narrow limits of his pent 
up Utica? Why does he confine his direct impressions to the 
three little things claimed by him? He had a direct impres- 
sion that he was a sinner, and another that his sins were par- 
doned, and another that he was called. Why did he not' keep 
on, and catch up with the Pope ? The first he could have got- 
ten indirect from the Spirit through the word ; the second he 
could have gotten in the same way ; and if he could not 
have gotten the third without getting it direct, I doubt 
whether he has sense enough to do it at all. Had he only 
been clever as I am, and I assure him that would not be 
smart enough to hurt much, as I figured it out without any 
DIRECT about it. 

The sinner has a direct impression that he is pardoned ; 
the spirit tells him he is not, but he feels, hence believes 
that he is. The direct, of course, goes up, and the indirect 
goes down. In following the path of this monster delusion, 
I find nothing from the time of its origin in the mind of the 
heathen priesthood, on through the ages, in Rome, in Prot- 
estantism, in politics, in law, in religion, but an arid des- 
ert without a single oasis. Like some mighty avalanche it 
sweeps everything from its pathway. As a criminal lawyer, 
I have met its horrid form, and grappled with its full power, 
and witnessed its triumphs. I have seen the majesty of law 
trampled in the dust under its feet ; evidence cast aside as 
a worthless thing. "A." kills "B." for ruining his wife; 
cooly, deliberately, with malice aforethought ; after weeks, 
kills him. The law says it is murder in the first degree. A 



270 casket's book. 

jury is impanelled to try the case. They take a solemn 
oath to try it according to the law and the evidence, their 
hands upon the Holy Book, God called upon as witness to 
their sincerity, and as aid to them in the rendition of a true 
verdict, " so help me God! '' is the language used by all. 
The evidence is conclusive ; not the shadow of a doubt re- 
mains ; indeed, the killing is not denied. The case is ar- 
gued. The prosecution for the State, in eloquent words, 
dwells on the heinousness of the crime, on the majesty of 
law, the sacredness of their oath. He might as well have 
spent his time in whistling twenty verses of Old Hundred 
to a wrong tune. The jury retire, soon return, and amidst 
the silence of the vast assembly their verdict is rendered ; 
the words, " not guilty! " fall upon the ear, while the ap- 
plause of the crowd cannot be restrained by the court. 
Law, evidence, and oaths are all swept away as by the 
waive of a magician's wand. What power could have over- 
turned, trampled on, swept away, leaving not even a shadow 
of Justice, law, evidence or oath? All summed up in one 
sentence, ' ' I feel," — direct impression. The j ury felt that 
the man ought not to hang, felt that they would have done 
the same thing under the same provocation, felt that he 
ought to go free ! 

The preacher felt he was called ; the sinner felt that he 
was pardoned ; the Pope felt that he was infallible. Direct 
impression, without words, and contrary to words. 

I have now shown beyond the possibility of doubt, that 
neither law nor Gospel has the weight of a feather when put 
in the scales with direct impression. 

On this feature of the subject, it only remains to show that 
the constitution, sealed with the blood of our heroic fathers, 
is as light as vanity in the hands of this Hydra-headed mon- 
ster. In fact, you may combine them and put them all to- 



DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 271 

gether, Bible, constitution and law, in one end of the scale, 
and the direct in the other, and they all go up in their end 
of the scale as easily as our world would hoist up a feather. 
One more thought, and I shall be done with this unpleasant- 
ness. A short time gone by a nation gathered at the grave 
of the slain great dead and wept. My tears freely mingled 
with theirs. I knew then and know now the hand that laid 
low his noble form in the dust. I felt then and feel now, as 
the blessed Savior did when he said to the weeping women, 
'* weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your chil- 
dren! " And, so I say, weep not for the fallen Garfield, 
but weep for yourselves ; that you have nursed and cher- 
ished, given strength and power to this murderous fiend. 
Your dogma fired the fatal shot. The wretch got a direct 
impression that it was his duty to his nation to remove its 
President. He struggled against it, as men often struggle 
against their call to preach, but the struggle not only 
intensifies the feelings, but deepens the impression, until 
it becomes the absorbing, haunting thought by day, and 
the dream by night; volition loses the power to direct 
the thoughts into any other channel, or fix the mind on any 
other subject. It matters not whether the impression is in 
harmony with or contrary to the Bible, the more he thought 
the more intense the feeling grew, until his life became a 
burden, till the bloody deed was done. He was born and 
raised in the hot house of direct impressions ; on this his 
imaginative nature fed ; it was breathed from all the pul- 
pits in the land ; mingled in the songs they sung ; the prayers 
they offered ; it was baptized in orthodoxy. His spirit could 
find no rest ; his sincerity stood the test of death, passed 
unscathed that ordeal. But that tests not the truth or falsity 
of that which is believed ; .only the honesty of him who be- 



272 casket's booKo 

lieves it. He lived by it, and died with it in his heart, and 
on his lips. How many of the called and sent would stand 
the test of the scaffold and rope, a gaping rabble crowd, and 
a death of infamy ? Poor Freeman and wife are but two 
more victims offered on the altar of this Moloch of ecclesias- 
ticism. He and his wife both had an impression at the same 
time that it would be their duty to kill their only darling 
babe. They spent weary days and sleepless nights in agon- 
izing prayer that this cup bitterer than death might pass from 
them. But no ! The folds of this serpent was coiling around 
them. The weeks of struggle ended — ended in the death 
of the beautiful, the sinless, child. But, you say, such a 
man was a monomaniac ! Of course he was, and so was 
she, and so was Guiteau. But what made them monoma- 
niacs? Faith and truth? Then banish truth from the 
world. Faith in anything the Spirit of God ever said — faith 
in the indirect? No! Faith in the lie of lies — faith in 
the direct impressions. And as certain as faith in it pro- 
duces sorrow, insanity, and death, so certain it is that it is a 
lie, and not the truth. 

Suppose the doctrine had never been believed or preached, 
as it ought never to have been ; suppose they had been taught 
to believe in and obey the indirect influence of the Spirit, 
and not the direct ? Garfield would have lived ; the babe 
would have lived ; Servetus would have lived ; all the mar- 
tyred Catholics and Protestants would have lived ; the church 
would have remained a unit ; God would have been honored, 
and glorified ; the church been sound and admired, instead 
of disgraced by divisions, crimes, and shed blood. All this 
harvest is reaped from the seed of direct impressions. We 
now post up and close the subject. An idea germinates in 
the mind of a heathen priest, is warmed into life by an un- 



DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 273 

> 

holy ambition, is communicated to others of his calling, 
Catholic priests adopt it, Protestants drink of the cup from 
polluted hands. It is interwoven into the warp and woof of 
their religions ; the nations and the civilized world get their 
ideas from the pulpit ; the idea becomes an all absorbing 
one. Infidelity, division, strife, blood, death, insanity, and 
all the evils and curses to which poor man is heir are piled 
up on him ; culminates in the untimely death of the Christian 
statesman ; and then the outraged nation avenges its out- 
raged laws, for the loss of its head by hanging the victim of 
an outrageous lie — conceived in sin and brought forth in 
iniquity. I thank the great and loving God, that he has 
permitted me to remain out of the grave, and on this side 
the river until I can enter this, my solemn protest, against 
this monstrous and deadly Dogma. 

18 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

SAVED BY GRACE. 

" Tor by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of your- 
selves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should 
boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk 
in them. — Ephes. ii : 8, 9, 1 0. 

UR text contains four words to which we will do well 
i|Mp| to take heed, as to a light that shinneth in a dark 




place. For they and their results embrace the sum 
total of the Christian religion in its application both 
to saints and sinners. A correct definition of these words 
is all important to a right understanding of the subject. It 
is matter of profound astonishment that words are used by 
the teachers of Christianity through a long life of ministerial 
labors without being defined. Even to their own minds, the 
meaning of words used by them is unknown. 

The first thing done by all other teachers is to teach 
pupils the meaning of terms peculiar to the science proposed. 
This is universally true, and applies to all things taught. 
No intelligent progress can be hoped for until this is done. 
All callings, pjiofessions, and trades abound in words 
peculiar to themselves ; full of meaning to those who under- 
stand them, and unmeaning to those who do not. All 
sciences, arts, trades, and occupations in life abound in 
these. Take a specimen from " the art preservative of 
all arts,'' printing. You step into the office and hear the 
printers talk in words which to their minds are perfectly 

(2U-) 



SAVED BY GRACE. 275 

clear and full of meaning ; to your mind no idea is com- 
municated ; all is chaos — because you do not understand 
the terms used. They use the words ''stick,'' "forms," 
"pi,'* and "devil," etc. You look around, and see noth- 
ing that you would think of calling a stick, a form, "and 
certainly nothing in the form of pi that would tempt the 
appetite of a hungry man ; especially you would see nothing 
like what you think a devil is. You find, on inquiry, that 
he is a chunk of a tow-headed boy ; that the pi is made up 
of small pieces of metal, unbaked and unseasoned, called 
type; and when they are set up in the form, and some 
careless loafer runs against and upsets things, they say it 
is knocked into pi! The printer, the lawyer, the doctor, 
the mechanic, the agriculturist, poet, philosopher, warrior, 
and statesman, all first teach the meaning of words and 
clearly define their terms. Teachers of the science of 
Almighty God and of the art of living well and dying happy, 
reserve to themselves the right to teach their great schools of 
pupils — church and world — without defining one-half of 
the words used by them, perhaps assuming that their pupils 
understand better than they do the meaning of their words. 
For to my mind it is clear that they do not understand them 
themselves. Let us select a few words, some of which fall 
from the pulpits all over the land on every Sunday the year 
round — " Change of heart." If any one has ever heard or 
read the meaning the preacher attaches to it, he has been 
more fortunate than I have been. Can a definition of the 
word heart be found in any of the theological books of the 
age ; in any of the books of sermons published ? What is 
the Scriptural meaning of the word? Perhaps this rigma- 
role will get about as near as any of them get to it: 
" Change of heart means conversion, and conversion means 
regeneration, and that means the new birth." Putting them 



276 casket's book. 

all together, they mean getting religion, and that means a 
sudden transition of feeling from sorrow to joy, produced 
by believing that they are pardoned. They deceive them- 
selves by thinking that the transition is produced by faith in 
Jesus ; as we think we have conclusively shown in a sermon 
on getting religion in a previous part of this book. 

Now, is not all this just as far beyond comprehension by 
any thinking mind as the untold dream of an idiot? Start- 
ing out with the mysterious and undefined term "heart,'* 
they simply confuse the mind by the multiplication of other 
non-explained and equally incomprehensible terms until it 
ends in the words, "getting religion" — not found in the 
Bible, in philosophy, or within the domain of reason, in 
common or uncommon sense. This brings us back to the 
first word in our text — ' ' Grace." What is it and how does 
it come? The word is defined by lexicographers to mean 
favor; defined by preachers — the Lord knows how. It is 
with them among the undefined words. From what they 
sing, preach, and pray about it, I can gather no idea at all 
of what they think on the subject. And I am fully con- 
vinced, if they were asked, when they pray for grace to be 
sent into their hearts, what they mean, they would wake up 
to the fact that they had used a word to which they attached 
no meaning, or do they have an idea that it is a mysterious, 
abstract something that is fixed up in heaven and sent down 
by an incomprehensible, mysterious agent into an indifferent 
something called the heart, so that the recipient could 
not possibly know what he had got or how he got it, or 
what to do with it after he had got it. Suppose a preacher 
and I were sitting in my parlor talking — one of my neigh- 
bor's boys comes in and says, "Father says, 'please send 
him grace.' " I say, " My son, I don't know what your 
father means ; I don't know what he wants ; perhaps this 



SAVED BY GRACE. 277 

reverend gentleman can enlighten me, as that is the way he 
talked to the Lord in his prayer last Sunday." " Oh, yes,'* 
says he, "it is perfectly clear to my spiritually illuminated 
mind. I understand him, and the Lord understood me. He 
means favor, and that is what I meant ; for grace means 
favor. 

Yes, but I am just as much in the dark in regard to what 
the man wants as his mind was when he sent such a petition 
to me, or as you were when you sent yours to the Lord. I 
wonder if the idea does not begin to force itself into his 
mind that he asked for a mythical something which the good 
Lord never had nor promised to give ; that he really had no 
idea in his mind and, of course, conveyed none to the mind 
of God. 

We have strangely misapplied this metonymical form of 
speech, of which the Bible is full ; and have confounded the 
name of things for the things themselves. Grace is the 
name and not a thing. It is one of the grandest words in 
all the Book of God ; it covers time and eternity — grasps 
in its capacious folds all that God for man or angels ever 
did, or ever will do in this world, or the world to come. It 
comes in ten thousand varied forms ; it comes to bless the 
world of mind, of morals and matter. But it always comes 
in an envelope properly labeled and named. Its name is 
Grace. Its envelopes are as varied as the gifts of God. It 
comes to us in the bright glancing sunbeams ; light and heat 
are God's gifts ; it comes in fertilizing showers and distilhng 
dews, in the bread we eat, the water we drink, the air we 
breathe ; it comes to mind and heart in the glorious truths 
by apostles and prophets revealed ; in the person of the 
Holy Spirit, to dwell in our hearts ; it came in the person of 
the blessed Christ, who is called by the apostle pre-eminently 
"the grace of God that bringeth salvation." Christ is the 
person given ; Grace is the name of the gift. 



278 casket's book. 

It comes in the pardon of sins through His name ; it will 
come at the close of life's fevered dream ; and when the 
dead are raised, and we enter at last through the gates into 
the city, in the form of a crown of everlasting joy and 
gladness will it come. The grace of the church at Antioch 
came to the starving saints at Jerusalem in the form of 
money — Paul calls it grace. That was the name of the 
thing sent. The apostle understood what he talked about. 
Had my neighbor, of whom I spoke awhile ago, decided 
what it was he wanted, and had showed that he had any 
sense, and assumed that I had any, and sent word in what 
form he wanted my grace, then I might have granted his 
prayer and met his wants. As it was, I could do nothing 
but wonder at his stupidity. Had he said, ' ' Father wants 
grace from you in the form of your horse and buggy to 
take a drive. " ' * Certainly, it will afford me pleasure to grant 
your father this small favor." Grace is what God does for 
us that we may be saved. Faith and works are what we do 
to save ourselves. The grace of God saves no man with- 
out any faith on the part of the saved. It is by grace and 
through faith. It depends upon what use faith makes of 
grace, whether man is saved by grace or not. If faith 
receives and appreciates the grace, accepts and enjoys, then 
he will be saved by it. If he accepts the Christ, the spirit, 
pardon, peace and joy wrought out for him by grace, then 
all is well with him. If not, then all that God has done is 
worse than valueless to him. From this standpoint how 
puerile and pitiful the criticism appears which tries to make 
faith the gift of God. The moment the case is made out 
faith is slaughtered. By counting it into a gift it is no 
longer faith but grace. Whatever God gives is his grace ; 
and you have but one thing, instead of two. It would be — 
By grace are ye saved through grace ! Passing by the word 



SAVED BY GRACE. 279 

saved, and witliout drawing the distinction between the pres- 
ent and future salvation while the writer applies it to the 
salvation then enjoyed by them. The truths uttered by him 
and the principles enunciated, applies with equal force to 
the hoped for salvation as well as to the one enjoyed. 
Passing also the word faith, about which so much has been 
written and said, contenting ourselves with the simple 
distinction between the faith and works of the text — faith 
is mental and moral, works are physical. "We believe with 
mind and heart and work with the body. We proceed to an 
examination of the last words, Good works, by which 
I understand work commended of God. Let us see 
if we can find their place in the place of redemption. 
Paul argues exhaustively and conclusively that we are 
not saved by them, and gives a reason that ought to 
have precluded all controversy. That it would reject salva- 
tion by grace, that is if justification is by or through faith ; 
that it might be by grace, not by work ; for if it were, man 
could boast that he had brought God under obligations to 
justify him. He could glory in self; he would release him- 
self from all obligation to God. And had God placed it on 
the ground or basis of works, law, or gospel, he would have 
cut himself off from man's gratitude. But the question is 
so definitely and distinctly settled by the ^reat apostle that 
we will not discuss it further ; and humbly suggest that a 
great and all-pervading mistake has been made on both 
sides of this hotly contested question, and that extremes 
have been reached by both sides. 

I hope it will not be regarded as presumptuous in the 
writer to attempt to throw light upon the subject, and thus 
place himself in conflict with the conclusions of the grandest 
minds that ever thought ; with all the debaters who have 
stood against him in the fierce conflicts of forty years of 



280 casket's book. 

debating life. The extremes reached by the parties, and 
debated by us and them, are : They affirm tjiat we are justi- 
fied by faith only without work ; and we afiirm that we are 
justified by faith and works. Neither is true ! as we shall be 
able to prove. 

The faith alone party while believing, or professing to 
believe in faith alone, do harder work, and more of it than 
the Jews did, who believed in justification by works without 
faith. And one-half of those that do the hardest work and 
the most of it, do not get the promised justification. Is 
not coming to the anxious seat work? Is not praying work? 
Do you not work with might and main for them? Is not 
singing and talking work? It makes you perspire freely 
enough to be work, if it is not. But you say, ' ' We do this 
work to get faith." I most respectfully suggest that you 
get the faith first, and perhaps the work will not be so hard. 
It is hard enough to work with faith, and must be awful to 
work without it. If all this work must to be done to get 
the faith, and faith can not be had without it, then the work 
is as essential as the faith. If it can be had without it, 
then don't do it ! 

I have been led off after the mourning bench, and left the 
other party standing on the platform of justification by faith 
and works. I now examine the strongest proof -texts relied on 
by both sides in their numerous debates. I shall notice only 
two, for, by these the question is settled. The fourth chap- 
ter of Eomans is the magazine from which faith alone derives 
its munitions of war; and James II. furnishes the other 
side. The subject is fully discussed by these two apostles. 
In the justification of the model man of faith, the faithful one 
of all ages and of all times, is included the justification of 
all believers who have the faith of Abraham and walk in 
his steps. ThQ faith alone side believing most devoutly and 



SAVED BY GEACE. 281 

earnestly, concluding that Abraham was justified by faith at 
the time he received and believed the promise made to him 
concerning the birth of Isaac; the others as devoutly 
believing and as earnestly concluding that Abraham was 
justified by works, when he offered Isaac on the altar. And 
now you are ready to jump to the conclusion that one or the 
other must be right and the other wrong. Please suspend 
your decision until the case is fully developed, and it may 
turn out that both are wrong. And two wrongs never made 
a right. All proof relied on to prove the truth of a given 
proposition ; all texts quoted, must be used in harmony with 
the facts of the case as developed in the history of the 
same ; or it is evidence of a perversion or misapplication of 
the proof. 

Now let us get the facts in this case : The first fact is that 
Abraham was justified when he believed the promise con- 
cerning Isaac. The second is, that Abraham was justified 
when he offered up his son of promise on the mount. Thus, 
you say, there are two justifications, and on different con- 
ditions — the first by faith without works, and the second by 
faith and works ! You are too hasty in reaching conclusions. 

There is a third fact in the history of Abraham's case that 
has been unaccountably overlooked by both contending 
parties, which is the key-stone in the arch, and when placed 
in the building perfects and completes the beautiful super- 
structure — reconciling apparent contradictions — bringing 
together the extremes. Unfortunately these builders, in 
hunting among the rubbish of the ruined temple for material 
to rebuild, failed to find this stone, without which the temple 
can not be finished. This third fact will appear in due time ; 
this key-stone will be brought forth and placed in the arch. 
And I pray God that it may cause as great rejoicing among 
these confused yet earnest builders as the finding of the lost 
key-stone did among the rebuilders of the old temple. 



282 casket's booKo 

But how stands the case in hand. "With the two facts 
already stated it stands thus: if Paul and James use the 
term justified in the same sense, and both use it in the sense 
of forgiveness of past sins, then the contradiction is not only 
apparent, but real, clear, and palpable, and all the logic this 
side of heaven will forever fail to harmonize them. There 
could not possibly be a more clear cut contradiction in 
stating the conditions of pardon than to first make one con- 
dition and then two, and differing as much as works differ 
from faith. If, as some contend, they use it in a different 
sense, that Paul uses it in the sense of pardon of past sins, 
and James in the sense of approval. If they are right they 
avoid the contradiction, and they sustain their doctrine of 
justification by faith alone, and before faith does anything. 
But it is not true that Paul uses it in one sense and James in 
another ; and, differently, it is not true that either of them 
use it in the sense of pardon. This has been the fatal voek 
on which both have wrecked their ships. The work side 
admitting that Paul used it as a synonym of pardon and 
James used it in the same sense. I fearlessly assert that the 
pardon of Abraham's sins was not within a thousand miles of 
the mind of either of the writers, and submit the following facts 
in proof of the truth of the assertion. It contradicts all the 
facts in the history of his pardon: The land of Canaan is not 
the place where he was pardoned ; when the promise of the 
birth of Isaac was made it was not the time when he was 
pardoned. Nor was faith in the promise of God the con- 
dition. Faith in a promise is never a condition of pardon, — 
but faith in a person. The same is true in regard to the 
offering of Isaac. Mount Moriah was not the place, and 
that was not the time, and, faith, not the condition. At this 
point we bring in the third fact in the history of the justifica- 
tion, or pardon of this wonderful man. And we find where he 



SAVED BY GRACE. 283 

was pardoned, when he was pardoned, and how he was par- 
doned. The place was in the land of Chaldees ; the time was 
when God first called him ; the condition was faith in God ; 
and the pardon was where faith acted — when he went out in 
obedience to the command, to " get out of the land." Paul 
says that Abraham believed God and went out, not knowing 
whither he went ; and Moses says, that this faith, he then and 
there had, was counted to him for righteousness. If justifi- 
cation is by faith alone before it works by love, then Abraham 
was pardoned the moment he believed. If he was not 
pardoned till he went out, then your doctrine that he was 
pardoned by faith alone is false. If pardoned when believ- 
ing and going out, it would still be true that he was pardoned 
by faith ; and the doctrine of pardon by faith and works is 
false. The how of pardon we regard as settled. It is by 
faith. And now the question of, when are we pardoned by 
faith as the condition? Are we pardoned as soon as we 
believe? I answer. No! Are we pardoned when faith 
stands alone and does nothing? Are we justified by works 
when the work is done? I answer, No ! We are justified by 
the faith that does the work, and when the work is done, 
whatever the work be. 

Abraham was justified by faith when he went out some 
twenty-three years before the promise made to him of a 
son. This is undenied and undeniable. Then how is it 
possible that Paul could mean that he was justified in the 
sense of pardon, when the promise of Isaac was made? 
That would be to pardon a pardoned man. It would have 
to be proven that the good old man had fallen from grace, 
and this would contradict all the facts in his history from 
the day he left Ur of the Chaldees up to the day when he 
received the blessed promise that gladdened his aged heart. 
All the facts show that he was a man of unfaltering faith 



284 casket's book. 

from the time he was justified in Ur up to the time of the 
promise. He was a devout worshiper, building altars, offer- 
ing sacrifices, wrestling the angel. If James uses it in 
the sense of pardon, that makes the case still worse ; for he 
has twice fallen : fell after pardon when he went out ; 
pardoned again when the promise was made ; fell again 
during the twelve years between the promise and the offer- 
ing ; pardoned again when he makes the offering. But the 
presumption would arise that he would not stay pardoned 
very long — that he would fall again the first chance he got ; 
that he set up the habit — it had become chronic. This 
makes him get religion oftener than an average Methodist. 
If all this interpretation be true, what a burlesque of a model 
man is set up for us to follow. God approved the faith 
that Abraham brought with him from the land of the 
strangers, when it staggered not at the promise, but was 
strong, giving God the glory. Down falls your Gibraltar of 
faith only ; your great gun is spiked. God approved the 
faith of his old and devoted servant and friend when he was 
ready to sacrifice that son ; and down falls the citadel of 
works ; the key-stone is placed in the arch. 

My assertion is proven ; Paul and James are in harmony. 
The extremes are brought together, and we stand on the 
solid rock of truth, that we are justified by faith when faith 
works. No case can be found where pardon is ascribed to 
faith till faith acts. From the justification of Abel on 
down through the ages all are pardoned through faith, and 
not through that which faith does. But the pardon is not 
granted until it is done. Abel by faith offered a more 
acceptable sacrifice than Cain. He had the faith when he 
caught the lamb, but it had not worked. Noah was saved 
by faith. He had the faith before he felled the first tree 
out of which the ark was built. He built by faith and was 



SAVED BY GRACE. 285 

saved when he built. Paul says the walls of Jericho fell by 
faith; but when? When faith existed? No; when it 
worked. We are justified by faith; but when? When 
we are baptized. Paul was pardoned through faith ; when? 
When he arose and was baptized. He had faith for three 
days before. So of all the cases of pardon ; and ^ue will 
not waste time in piling them up. No case can be found 
since the commission was given of pardon claimed until the 
person was baptized in obedience to the faith of the 
Gospel. 



CHAPTER XXIL 

AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 
I. 

Dear Brother Jones : In last number of the Christian 
Unitist, I noticed a call from the faithful and beloved 
Manire, indorsed by yourself, requesting me to furnish a 
series of articles for your pages in reference to the past of 
the churches in Mississippi, and my labors among them. 
Had the call come from any other source, it would have shared 
the fate of all similar ones — entire neglect ; first, because I 
have, as you well know, a great aversion to writing ; and, 
secondly, because I have a peculiar knack of doing injustice, 
both to my subject and to myself, with the pen. I am satis- 
fied I was not born to write. Many brethren, for whose 
oiDinions I entertain a profound regard, have requested me 
to write a number of my discourses, and put them in book 
form. I would as soon think of building a railroad to the 
moon. But when the brethren of Mississippi want anything 
286 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 287 

in reason done, that I can do, they have but to make it 
known. 

Mississippi has never called on me that I did not answer. 
On her altar I have offered labor ^ life^ and fortune,, and all 
were lost but life. She is bound to my heart by many a tie, 
by many a memory ; some sad and mournful, others bright 
and sparkling as gems of night. Within her borders my 
earliest manhood days were spent. Among her hills and 
dales my ministerial life has measured out its length. Along 
her lonely roads, among her sighing pines, often too, when 
stars looked down from quiet skies, I arranged many of the 
best sermons I ever preached, or ever shall preach. Within 
her bosom sleeps the dust of those I loved and lost. My 
beauteous wife of almost boyhood days ; my stalwart boy of 
man's estate, together with his brother dear who met 
untimely death ; and the last little bud from the maternal 
stem of her who has borne, and nobly borne, with me the ills 
of life, are lying in the dust, nipped by untimely frost, but 
blooming bright in heaven. And last, but hardly least, the 
devoted slave, who for long and weary years, in her faithful 
arms, carried her own babes and ours, and nursed them 
both, sleeps quietly, not far from the other loved ones. I 
stood over her grave and wept. But she was a Christian, 
and lives above. 

Poor Mississippi! You sit like a queen dethroned and 
uncrowned, by the side of the great father of waters, whose 
on-rolling waves lave your way-worn feet. Beneath your 
bright sky the notes of your native mocking-bird are heard, 
"from early morn till dewy eve," and through the starry 
watches of the night. Among your groves the magnolia and 
the orange bloom, the odors of which, when blended, surpass 
the richest perfume of the far-famed garden of pomegranates 
of Israel's wisest king. 



288 casket's book. 

State of my adoption ! Thou sittest with tear-bathed face 
and pallid brow, sorrowing much and sad at heart, in mourn- 
ing clad, because thy sons have perished from thy side, and 
thy daughters fair cease not to weep their fall and thy mis- 
fortune. But thou art still enshrined in many hearts, and 
tliou shall yet he great. 

A few more months at most, and my weary feet shall tread 
again thy soil, never to wander more till life's labor close ; 
then on thy gentle bosom my head shall lie pillowed, and 
dust to dust shall turn. 

But now to the subject; yet I hardly know where to 
commence, and am half inclined not to commence at all ; for 
if a true and faithful tale is told I fear much more harm than 
good will flow therefrom. But this, like all things else, must 
take its chance. 

I commenced preaching, — no, trying to preachy — in 
Claiborne County, in the year 1842. I was then working at 
my trade, and was very ignorant and very poor. Through 
the blessing of Providence, I held on to the former for many 
long years, and perhaps for the want of proper effort, have 
held on to the latter, up to the present writing. I worked 
at my trade — blacksmith — from daylight till nine o'clock 
at night, then studied English grammar, logic, rhetoric, 
natural, intellectual, and moral philosophy, read history, 
ancientandmode rn, and dabbled in poetry from nine to 
eleven, by a pine knot light, wife aiding me. Tried to 
preach on Lord's days. I was afterwards told I made a 
poor preach, and doubt not they told the truth. I replied 
it was poor pay, and I 'know I told the truth. 

The first meeting of importance at which I assisted, more 
by way of exhortation than preaching, was at Battle Springs, 
near Jackson. The venerable Gen. Wm. Clark (and few 
better men have lived), the lamented Jefferson H. Johnson, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 289 

then of Utica, Hinds County, and the loved "Wm. P. Cham- 
bers (I wot not what has become of him), were present. 
There were, I think, some thirty additions. I being but a 
short time from out the ranks of Methodism, had not yet 
forgotten the shibboleth of that denomination; and I 
remember well that our aged, and now sorely afflicted, but 
cheerful and happy brother, Jas. A. Baskin, Aquila-like, 
took me out to teach me the way of the Lord more perfectly. 
I had thrown out a scrap of sectarian theology, but I was 
not as teachable as Apollos, and like many young preachers, 
thought I knew it all, or if I did not, it was not worth 
knowing. He gave me till next morning to find proof that 
I was right. I spent a sleepless night, but did not find it, 
and have not found it yet. Publicly took it back next day, 
and came to the conclusion I was no Solomon, when a plain 
old farmer, then a private member of a little country church 
knew more than I. The truth is, I suppose I could not have 
found a disciple then, who had been in the church as long as 
he, who did not know more than I did. Those were the 
days WHEN Testa^ients were carried in pockets to the 
WORK-BENCHES AND THE FIELDS, and many a valiant cir- 
cuit rider, and doughty local preacher, who shivered a 
lance against the great heresy, found himself completely 
routed by a homespun-shirted and copperas-breeched pine- 
woods plowman. In this respect we, as a people, are 
rapidly advancing backwards. 

The following year I left my anvil to cool, and commenced 
traveling and preaching for the church at Battle Springs. I 
did not preach much there. I had to go where the people 
knew less. They promised me three hundred dollars, con- 
cluding with the poet, that " man wants but little here 
below ;" and I was fearful that I might want that long before 
I would get it. I concluded, however, to risk it. They 

19 



290 casket's book. 

paid me up promptly, as thej^ did for many years after. 
They never promised very much. I think they had an idea 
that a preacher ought to be kept poor so as to keep him 
honest. A large number seem to have that idea yet. But, 
for the present, — enough. T. W. Casket. 

Paducah, Kt., August, 1870. 



AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 
11. 

I wish now that my first letter was where it came from, 
and that I had adhered to my determination so long kept, 
not to write, or promise to write for any periodicals. I am 
something like the old Hardshell Baptist, who said that when 
he felt like it it was as easy to preach as it was for the Tom- 
beckbee River to run down stream ; but when he did not, it 
was as hard as mauling rails out of black-gum. Now the 
truth is, I do not often feel like using the pen, and having 
been mixed up with the things of Csesar for the last two 
months, I feel less like it than usual. But write I must or 
the editor of the Unitist will grumble, and perhaps, get that 
nameless imp, who dwells about printing offices and down 
below, after me, with a weapon longer and heavier, if not 
sharper and mightier than the pen. In 1844 I preached 
pretty much in the same field as in 1843, ranging from 
Battle Springs to Columbus, Mississippi, and including 
Benton, Lexington, Carrollton, Black Hawk, and many 
other places too numerous to mention, and some of them 
forgotten. 

But I shall not soon forget Carrollton and Teoc. We had 
a considerable congregation at the former place, which was 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 291 

at that time quite a flourishing village, fond of town fashions 
and putting on city airs. The church at Teoc numbered 
about thirty members who met in a pine woods school-house 
on a stream of the same name some ten miles west of Car- 
rollton. The brethren here were poor, honest, pious, hard- 
working people, some of whom thought it all right and in 
good taste to shoulder their guns, whistle up their dogs, 
forget to put on their vests and coats, and in copperas pants 
and homespun shirts, minus the collar button, and brogan 
shoes, less what goes between the shoe and the foot, come to 
church on Saturday, hoping to add to their larder " a chunk 
of a deer" for a Sunday's dinner. I often wonder if any 
other preacher was ever fool enough to mix up at protracted 
meetings congregations so dissimilar in tastes, habits and 
feelings. If he did, I venture to say he never tried it a 
second time, or if he did it drove him crazy. I had to do more 
preaching to get the country members to throw the mantle 
of charity over the silks, ruffles, and furbelows of the town 
members, and to get the town members to do the same for 
the homespun garb and rusty manners of the country church 
than I had to do to get sinners to obey the gospel. I had 
two very successful meetings at Teoc in that year. Had to 
preach out of doors because no house could be found that 
could hold half the people. 

The first week we put the women in the house, the men 
remaining in the yard, and I standing in the door. I now 
think that during the second week the house would not have 
held the children without their mothers ; so we turned all out 
into the yard. It was a sight never to be forgotten, to stand 
in Bro. Ferguson's yard on an elevation surrounded by tall 
sighing pines, just after night's dark mantle had closed 
around, and stars had begun to look down from clear, blue 
skies, and, turn to the East, West, North, South, and all 



292 casket's book. 

intermediate points! Wherever you looked you saw fire- 
lights flashing from numberless hunting pans (as they are 
called in pioneer parlance), filled with resinous pine. These 
vivid torches, separated when first seen and each throwing 
out its own particular rays, as they all converged to a com- 
mon center, and mingled their rays together, filled that 
center and its surroundings, with a flood of light, as though 
a new sun had risen at the close of day ! 

In the rear of each of these pan-lights born on the shoul- 
ders of father, brother, husband or lover, followed a 
train of the old, the middle aged, youths and children to say 
nothing of the ubiquitous dog, of which country people are 
proverbially fond, and with which they are always well sup- 
plied. Oh ! there was beauty, sublimity, and poetry in the 
mingling and blending and harmonizing of lights and peo- 
ple — and music, too, including the dogs! The meetings 
were kept up fifteen nights embracing two Saturdays and 
Lord's days. I had no help until the last night, when after 
the discourse and invitation, fourteen came forward and 
made the good confession, among them a number of Brother 
Ferguson's relatives. He was one of the elders but not a 
teaching elder ; for he was so timid we could not get him to 
pray in public, but that night while they were coming for- 
ward, I heard a voice break forth in exhortation, which for 
eloquence, pathos and power, would have done credit to a 
Maffit, a Bascom, or a Prentiss. I turned about and to my 
utter astonishment it was Brother Joe. Completely carried 
away by his feelings he had mounted the chair behind which 
I stood, and with form eroct, flushed face, flashing eye and 
violent gesticulation — not such as is taught in the books and 
the schools, but such as nature prompts when man loses 
himself in his subject, was urging men to turn to God and 
live. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 293 

The moment he caught my wondering look he recollected 
himself and his tongue was still and as silent as if palsied 
in death ! that exhortation came to a close in the middle of 
a sentence. It was the first and the last that Brother Joe 
ever made, as far as known. So much for excitement. 

I closed the meeting that night ; not because the people 
would not hear and confess and obey, but because there 
was too much excitement. So I then thought, but have 
since been led to doubt. The meeting closed with forty 
additions. Three weeks after, when the enthusiasm had 
cooled down somewhat, I went back again and baptized 
twenty others, among whom was old father Bradley in his 
ninty-fifth year. He said that he would have been a Chris- 
tian all his life, if sectarian teaching, or rather false teach- 
ing had not cheated him out of all of life that is worth living 
for — religious enjoyment. Poor old man! I wish that 
he was the only one to utter the same sad truth. But 
adieu, for the present, to Teoc Church, and what is left of 
its old membership. T. W. Casket. 

WooDLAWN Place, Miss., Jan., 1871. 



AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 

ni. 

Brother Errett: I am thinking to-night of a request 
made by Brother Manire when last I saw him at his pleasant 
home in Winona, that I would resume my sketches of minis- 
terial life in Mississippi, which was broken off by my going 
to the plow, and the unfortunate demise of the Unitist. I 
am somewhat in doubt whether they will result in good or 
ill. If I a truthful story tell, I fear me much that the 



294 casket's book. 

youths among us who are contemplating making preaching 
their life calling, may be prevented from entering upon the 
rough and rugged path that I have had to tread ; but of 
this you must be the judge. Before, however, taking up 
the thread of the past, a word or two in regard to the present. 
I have just closed up my year's work with the churches 
for which I preached the present year, and will say for them 
that they have kept good faith, notwithstanding the money 
panic, Sardis, Antioch, Thyatira — and other places, have 
met their pledges as brethren always should. I deeply re- 
gret that duty compels me to turn them over into other 
hands. 

I am now in Memphis "the Bluff Hill City." A few 
months since she was weeping over her dead ; now you hear 
the joyous laugh from merry hearts. A few weeks since her 
streets were crowded with nought but faces sad, and mourn- 
ing groups and black-plumed hearses, bearing the dead to 
their last resting place — now all is life, crowded streets, 
crowded stores, men, women and children hurrying hither 
and thither, as though their own life and the life of the rest 
of mankind depended on their reaching a given point; in a 
given time. To see the activity, the hurry scurry, you 
would conclude that nobody had died here in the last half 
century and that no one had any notion of dying so long as 
they could see anybody else living. You are only reminded 
that the grim monster has been here by the numbers who 
are draped in somber colors, — a custom which, in my 
humble judgment, ought to be sent back to heathendom, 
with about one-half of modern theology, whence they came. 
Unmeasured must be the vitality of Memphis. It must be 
nearly equal to poor Burns' John Barleycorn. But if thus I 
ramble on, I shall not soon take up the broken link, where I 
left off, just where I do not now remember. As well as 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 295 

memory serves, my last brought me up to the close, or near 
about, of 1844. In the spring of 1845, I met with the 
eccentric Jas. A. Butler, at the town of Columbus. He had 
a protracted meeting for Gainesville, Alabama, and wanted 
me to go with him to that place. Not knowing his peculiar 
talent for word-painting, I was lured by him, off my intended 
route. He drew a picture of Gainsville, and paradise, from 
which Adam was driven, was not a circumstance. The demi- 
gods of mythological lore, were not to be compared to the men 
at Gainsville, and as for the women, the beauty of Eve would 
pale before the ugliest daughter of woman born in all that 
latitude. We went, and though the place, the men, the 
women fell considerably below his picture drawn of them, I 
found them a good people. We had a good meeting — some 
twenty odd additions. Having about this time concluded 
that the Bible told the truth, when it said it wag not good 
for man to be alone, and especially a preaching man, and as 
a prudent man ought, before taking unto himself a wife, a 
careful inventory take of all his worldly goods, and get'the 
same from her whom he intends to wed, mine when counted 
up were ; one horse, saddle and bridle, one cloth coat (price 
$16.00), one pair jeans pants (price $3.50), hat, boots, and 
a few other unmentionables, together with $8.00 in cash. 
Mrs. Caskey, that was to be, had herself and two boys aged 
ten and twelve, a negro woman and two chrildren, ages not re- 
membered — and it makes no difference as they never made 
me anything and only cost me their raising. We in our wisdom 
concluded that this would do to start life with and so wedded. 
And thank God ! neither of us have regretted the step taken, 
up to the present time. After marriage, to be in fashion, 
we started on a bridal tour, in the direction, however, of a 
string of appointments I had on hand. She dressed in calico, 
I as before stated. Horse worth seventy-five dollars, 



296 casket's book. 

($75.00) buggy $50.00, trunk $2.50, and contents, don't 
know how much — not much, though. But we drove on, 
dear wife and I, much happier I doubt not than many others 
with a more costly outfit, until we measured twenty miles or 
more. When we had passed a beautiful prairie decked in 
April flowers, and had entered a dreary swamp about two 
miles, I suddenly found myself measuring six feet three and 
a half on the ground towards sunset, wife setting in the old 
buggy holding on to the upper side with both hands rather 
poorly suppressing her mirth at seeing her new made liege 
lord sprawling in the mud, the axle had broken and had 
broken at the wheel on my side. And now in the swamp, in 
the mud, among the musquitoes, among the gnats, drizzling 
rain, and nearly night, and. four miles from any place, I 
leave us for the present, as this will be too long, as well as 
dull. Where or when I will write again I know not. 

T. W. Casket, 
December 25, 1873. 



AN OLD PEE ACKER'S EXPERIENCE. 

IV. 

Brother Errett: The church having failed, in part to 
comply with their promises, and wishing to give two of my 
sons a year's work on the farm before sending them to Lex- 
ington University I turned Cincinnatus and after following a 
long-eared son of Balaam from morn to dewy eve, I feel 
more like being wrapped in the embrace of Morpheus, than 
writing memories of the past. In looking over number two 



AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 



297 



I find that I had just bidden adieu to the pine hills and 
good brethren of Teoc ; but memory calls up from her 
store-house one scene there that I cannot take my final leave 
of without an effort to recall and put it in print. The 
brethren had built a large house of split pine logs hewed. 
It was in an unfinished state ; cracks unceiled ; doors and 
windows unhung ; no fire-place, for they had caught a little 
of the aristocratic feeling for which they abused the Carroll- 
ton Church, and decided to have a sure enough stove. Said 
stove arrived in due time, one cold snap in the month of 
March, minus the pipe. I accused them of not knowing 
the pipe was a necessary part of the stove, but they said it 
was an oversight on the part of the merchant from whom 
they purchased the stove. 

Of course the question remains unsettled up to the present 
writing, but the after developments inclined me much then, 
and now, to think I was right. The stove was duly installed 
in the middle of the church on Sunday. I was to preach on 
Sunday. It was a cold blustering day. A large crowd, as 
usual, m-et — men, women and children — white and black — 
and the everlasting dog, without which, no country audience 
was complete. There were many wondering, childish eyes 
opened wide that day, for it was the first thing in that line 
they had ever looked upon, and it was not long before in 
their childish hearts, with big baby tears rolling down their 
faces, they wished that it might be the last. The deacons 
thinking a stove was made to heat up a big house — doors all 
open — windows ditto. Cracks that you might have thrown 
some of the small dogs through without touching either log ; 
with a north March wind howling among the pines — to heat 
up, on this they were intent — pipe or no pipe ; so before I 
reached the scene of action they had filled it full of black 
oak bark from the rails of a fence hard by, and fired up. Now 



298 casket's book. 

I have seen audiences weep at the close of a pathetic exhorta- 
tion, but I never witnessed such universal and unrestrained 
weeping as before the preaching commenced when the pun- 
gent smoke from that bark got into the eyes, mouth, 
nose and throat. If it did not draw tears from the eyes 
of saint and sinner, more copious than an Apollos could 
have done with his loftiest flight of eloquence or his deepest 
toned pathos, then am I mistaken in regard to the tearful 
effects of smoke gotten up on the plan of those deacons. 
But I, being somewhat used to roughing it and not easily 
daunted by obstacles, entered the improvised pulpit to de- 
liver a sort of dedication sermon. Brother W. P. Chambers, 
now of Arkansas, opened with prayer or, more correctly 
speaking, with clearing of the throat, coughing and prayers. 
I was much perplexed then, and am yet, to decide which pre- 
dominated, as I am about — Eomanism — three parts in each ; 
throat clearing, coughing and prayer ; Judaism, mythology, 
Christianity. Now why would not the thing work out even ? 
Because I overlooked the largest element in the latter, and 
that is FOOLERY. After the good brother got through with 
whatever the conglomeration or agglomeration might be 
called, I commenced my discourse, and think yet I could 
have worried through after a fashion, notwithstanding there 
was a large window at the back of the pulpit, and cracks all 
around, and wherever a crack could be conveniently put. 
The wind blowing in through where the window shutter was 
to be, and through the cracks that were to be ceiled ; babies 
crying, everybody coughing; some trying to keep from it 
but making a more disturbing noise than a good old honest 
healthy cough. Unfortunately though for poor me, who had 
just as much as I could bear, and a little more, the darkies 
got into a dispute outside the house as there was not room 
inside, as the whites, and the never-to-be-forgotten stove 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 299 

filled up the inside, that is, the space inside not taken up by 
the smoke. They waxed warm and loud in their dispute 
over the stove — the absent pipe, politics or something 
else — I never did find out what it was. At this point in 
matters, I may say without exaggerating, that the situation 
was bordering upon the desperate. To cap the climax, the 
dogs got up an ' ' Arkansaw ' ' free fight. I have no idea how 
many dogs there were ; perhaps Brother P. D. Robison, of 
Arkansas, can tell, as he was sent out by me to stop it, or 
take part in it. Perhaps thirty would not be over the mark. 
All went in except a half-grown hound pup. It was too much 
fight for his pluck, so he tucked his caudal appendage be- 
tween his rear feet handles, and ran howling homeward. 
And now I confess, with some degree of mortified pride, 
that for once in life I was overcome and had to give up until 
Brothers Robison, Ferguson and others took out the (not 
the pipe), chased off the dogs with pine knots, cuffed the 
darkies and restored order. Past midnight! Good night 
readers till next service. T. W. Caskey. 

Austin, Texas, February 20th. 



AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 

LETTER V. 

I guess, as a Yankee would say, it is about time I was pick- 
ing wife and myself up from where I was spilled out in the 
swamp. She, however, did not have to pick herself up as she 
still was up in the buggy, enjoying a hearty laugh at my 
expense. " I guess " it would not have been a very healthy 
amusement for any one else to have indulged in at that par- 



300 casket's book. 

ticiilar time. But she looked so beautiful, perched on the 
upper side of the buggy, with sparkling eyes and flushing 
cheeks, while hearty laughter rippled from her parted lips — 
that I really enjoyed it and had some thought of just lying 
still and feasting my eyes on my beautiful treasure, while 
she enjoyed the not very dignified posture of her worse half. 
But more practical thoughts prevailed, for I was fast dam- 
aging my Sunda3^-go-to-meeting clothes, sprawled out on 
the wet ground. So up I jumped, spoiling thereby both 
pictures ; got a sapling that some wagoner had cut out of 
his way, to shun one of the numberless mud holes that were 
in the road. I took the lines from my horse and tied one 
end of the pole to the front axle and running it back under 
the hind axle, near the hub, tying it fast, we were again in 
traveling condition — that is, to travel foot back. Had it 
been in a fashionable parlor or in Court Square it would have 
been called a promenade ; but as it was through the mud 
and among swarms of black gnats, (there would have been 
musquitoes too, but it was too early in the season), it degener- 
ated into an unpleasant, old-fashioned walk or tramp. After 
the shades of night had gathered darkly round us, we reached 
the little log cabin we had passed so merrily that bright and 
beautiful evening, the sun's bright beams glinting and spark- 
ling on the flower-decked prairies, brightness and gladness in 
our hearts. Wife bravely and merrily trudging along in 
front, I following, the horse following me, and the broken 
buggy following him. In this order we reached the afore- 
said cabin. Had I followed wife as closely the balance of 
life's journey thus far, I would have been a wiser, better, 
wealthier, and happier man. The occupant of the cabin had 
a little wood-shop for the repair of the wood- work of wagons, 
as they were continually getting smashed up, going through 
that miserable boggy wallow, pine woods swamp. He could, 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 301 

however, do nothing in iron work, and it took two doctors to 
heal the wounds my poor buggy had received. Here I 
learned, as I had often done before and oftener since, that 
it is not a bad thing, to be a good blacksmith, if a man is 
white. The kindhearted poor people did the best they 
could for our comfort, but I was satisfied then, and am yet, 
that our horse spent the most pleasant night of the three of 
us ; and of another fact, that too much politeness as often 
brings discomfort as comfort. The cabin had less rooms than 
two, and they had less beds than two, but the good lady 
made two out of one ; and here came in the politeness over- 
done that cheated me out of sweet dreams that night, and 
made me feel next morning like I had been run rather 
rapidly through a threshing machine. The bedding before 
it was divided consisted of a thin feather-bed and an equally 
thin cotton mattress. The lady said we must occupy the 
bedstead. Her politeness had taught her that that was the 
place of honor for her guests. I insisted on wife and I tak- 
ing the floor. I have wished ever since that I had said 
nothing, and let wife and her settle the point in the code of 
etiquette, or that it had been raised by the man instead of 
the woman ; for I am satisfied that I would have disputed 
the point with him till morning-light appeared, rather than 
try that thin cotton mattress on those rough slats. But 
what could I do with a woman in her own house, and she 
the hostess and I the guest? Why, as a matter of course, I 
came out second best and she had her way. But she kindly 
gave us the choice of the beds. I chose the mattress for I 
had a painful recollection of having tried a thin feather bed 
once on slats, and most solemnly vowed I would never try 
that peculiar way of chasing sleep far away any more, fool- 
ishly imagining in my ignorance, that nothing but a flax hackle 
could be worse. Cotton mattresses, after the present pattern 



302 casket's book. 

had not then been invented. The cotton, I presume, had once 
been soft, as nearly all cotton is, but that time, with it, was 
in the long, long, ago. It was, or had been, put in loose — 
no stitching through the ticking. It had managed to get 
into hard lumps, of all shape and sizes, some as big as a 
piece of chalk, some considerably bigger. But what sur- 
prised me most then, and that I don't yet fully understand, 
was that by some incomprehensible principle in the science of 
cottonology (to coin a word) no two or at most three, of 
these hard lumps got into a line or straight row. Trying 
to sleep on a crooked row of potato hills would have been fun 
to this experiment. I tried that bed all over, for my better 
half, being better acquainted with that sort of things than I, 
if I was a preacher, seemed to understand the status well, 
and so she rather shoved the edge of the mattrass over the 
rail next the wall, and quietly deposited herself along the 
rail, supported by the wall, and kept from falling out thereby. 
This left me the whole of that bed. I have always regretted 
that there was so much of it. Sleep on the front rail I 
could not, for fear of falling out ; to sleep on the mattress 
was simply impossible, so I made a compromise, and did 
not sleep at all. Now, usually, I am not constitutionally 
opposed to the front rank, especially at the table. I have 
taken the front rank in marching, and in battle, but if ever 
I take the front on such another bed as that — well I 
won't — that's fixed. Next morning the man fixed the 
woodwork and I the iron. Mrs. C. and the lady got us a 
good breakfast — like the supper only the coffee was vastly 
improved, by Mrs. C. putting more coffee to the same 
quantity of water : this does improve the taste of the bever- 
age wonderfully, a fact that many people never have learned. 
I put this in, for their special benefit. We then hitched up, 
after enjoying the delicious dainties of corn bread, straight 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 303 

coffee and pickled pork. We bad nearly three hundredmiles 
of a bridal tour before us, over as poor a country as a 
bird ever flew. From Gainsville, Alabama, to Brandon, 
Mississippi, there was nothing worth looking at all along our 
tedious wUy, among the interminable sighing pine forests, 
and so we looked at each other. I recollect nothing of par- 
ticular interest occurring during the remainder of our bridal 
tour, save one which brought bitter, but short-lived sorrow to 
the heart of my bride. We wed as strangers, I being fully 
indorsed by documentary evidence and personally by the 
executive James A. Butler. Wife needed no indorsement. 
I won't tell how long it was after we saw each other till we 
were made one. She does not like me tell lest some might 
think she was very anxious to marry. Well, suffice to say, it 
was some longer than a stick — not much. I had forgotten 
to tell her that when I had high fever, that I went as crazy 
as a Bedlamite, and cussed as profusely as the soldiers in 
Flanders. Late one evening on our lonely way, I had a 
heavy chill. By midnight I was in the zenith of delirium. 
Half asleep, half awake, belching out oaths that doubtless 
would have startled any preacher or Christian conscience 
except one as deranged as mine was, I heard a smothered 
sob from a troubled heart ; the great big glistening tears 
were flowing down her cheeks. Poor girl! She thought 
she had taken her ducks to a bad market, and sure enough 
she had ; but not as bad as she then thought. The sight of 
her tears checked the flow of profanity, and the tide of de- 
lirium, for a few minutes. I explained to her this pecu- 
liarity of mine, which clings to me yet. She seemed to be 
satisfied ; dried up her tears and wept no more — at least 
when I could see her. But during the remainder of the 
journey I could see the dark shadow of doubt steal over her 
face till we reached Brandon. When she saw the happy 



304 casket's book. 

welcome those good brethren gave to her and me, sunshine 
of joy illumined her face ; and I thank God that few clouds 
have drifted over it since by acts of mine. I met, at this 
time and place, the venerated old Brother, Gen. William 
Clark, of Jackson, Mississipi. "We held a meeting of ten 
days, and had, I think, twenty-seven additions. One inci- 
dent occurred at this meeting bordering on the ludicrous. 
An old infirm man from North Carolinia, seventy years old, 
made the good confession, after spending twenty years of 
his life trying to get religion. He was about six feet six 
inches in height, tall and slender as a bean-pole ; looked like 
he had stretched himself up all his life, after x)ersimmons. 
Brother Clark was five feet eight inches ; corpulent, old and 
crippled with rheumatism. The long old man seemed to 
have the idea in his head that the validity of baptism, to 
him at least, depended on the adminstrator having come 
from North Carolina. Brother Clark being from that State, 
he must baptize him. Nothing but an old-fashioned North 
Carolina baptism — administrator, actor, and subject — 
would satisfy his conscience. In vain we pointed out 
the difficulties in the watery pathway. He seemed deter- 
mined to travel with Brother Clark, and no one else. 
"We appointed the hour of ten on Lord's day morning 
and would go from the pool to church. The crowd was 
large, the morning was beautiful and bright. The scene was 
solemn as death, as these two old men with tottering forms 
and bleaching locks, slowly descended into the yielding 
bosom of the water. I was to preach at eleven and was 
dressed for church — boots black and shiny, my wedding 
jeans pants well dusted and well strapped down too with 
leather straps as wide as my hand and sewed to the pants as 
was the fashion. I was in a fix. No other boots or pants to 
put on in the event Brother Clark failed, as I was almost 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 305 

certain iie would. And fail he did; once, twice, and a 
third time. By this time they were so exhausted that neither 
of them could have got out of the pool without strong help. 
Brother Clark poor old man, looked up pitifully at me, and 
said, "Brother Caskey, you will have to baptize him; I 
can't." Down I stepped into the pool. Here I must stand 
until another moon. T. "W. Caskey. 

Fort Worth, Texas, April 7. 



AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 

LETTER VI. 

I believe in my last I left myself and my old North Caro- 
li"na subject standing in the baptismal font. I "guess," 
as a Yankee would say, it is about time we were getting out 
of the water, as the old man has been in there an unreason- 
able length of time, owing to Brother C.'s two failures to 
get him under. I, being nearly as long for this world as he, 
had no difficulty in baptizing him. I never learned whether 
he considered it valid or not, as it was not administered by a 
North Carolinian. But now I was in a fix — wet at least up 
to the skirts of my coat, if not higher ; no other boots or 
shoes ; no other coat or pants — for I generally depended on 
the brethren furnishing me pants to baptize in, and I can 
safely say that, while they did very well for that, they would 
not have done well for anything else, without putting sugar 
in m}^ boots to draw the legs downward. Preaching hour at 
hand, and I had to preach ; marched up from the font to 
church, just as I came out of the water — boots not shining 
to do much good, and I much disposed to utter a clerical 

20 



306 casket's book. 

malediction against all sectional foolery in religion. I 
preached though as best I could in this somewhat sorry 
plight, and presume, from the effect, that I preached a warm 
discourse, as I found when I closed that the warmth, either 
from the inside or outside, had dried my boots and breeches. 
We had a good meeting at this time and place. As I may 
not again revisit old Brandon soon, either in fact or f ancj^, 
I may as well state that during the years 1844-5-6-7 we built 
up a church of good material, to about 70 strong. But as I 
changed my field of labor and Brother Clark got borne down 
by the weight of years, Brother Estep, who united with us 
from the Baptists and preached among us, also moving off, 
and no other preachers to fill the vacant places, it only re- 
quired years to pass and deplete by removal, death and 
apostasy this once popular and flourishing church. The war 
coming on put the finishing death touch to it, and now the 
Episcopal Church and dog- fennel reign supreme where once 
a Christian Church and Brandon Bank shinplasters were 
controlling influences. But I find many of my spiritual 
children of those years scattered over this and other 
States, pleasantly reminding me that my labor was not in 
vain in the Lord, and that the good seed of the kingdom 
sown there in weakness has developed in great power — these 
brethren and sisters scattering off into other States and be- 
coming the nuclei around which others gather. Others of 
them have crossed over, and I fondly hope are resting under 
the shade of the tree of life. If faithful until death I shall 
see those loved and fondly remembered ones in the house of 
our Elder Brother. 

Leaving Brandon, we went next to Jackson, the capital 
of the State, and the home of the venerable Brother 
Clark. * I do not remember the result of that meeting — not 
much though, I am inclined to think, at this great dim dis- 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 307 

tance from the past. We turned our faces homeward, via 
Benton, CarroUton, and Lexington, holding a meeting of a 
few nights in each of these country towns. I remember now 
no incidents of much interest in this our bridal tour, except 
some one or two, more -amusing than instructive, which 
served to amuse us and while away the loneliness of a long 
trip through the sighing pine forests. Late one evening, 
after a long day's drive, we approached the sluggish, winding 
stream of Big Black. The swamp, about half a mile in width, 
had been ditched, so as to prevent the inundation of the road, 
and a rail road of the Davy Crockett type built thereon. 
Lest my readers may not understand what sort of a road 
this is, in Western and Southern parlance, I rise to explain, 
as the darky member of the Mississippi Legislature said. 
It is said of Col. Crockett, of Alamo memory, that when he 
first went to Congress from West Tennessee some member 
from the East introduced a railroad bill. Crockett immedi- 
ately got the floor and urged the passage of the bill with all 
the warmth of his ardent temperament and backwoods elo- 
quence ; but suggested to the mover of the bill for charter, 
instead of laying the grade with iron bars, to lay with trees 
two feet through, split open in the middle, flat side down, 
oval side up. His theory of self -moving transportation was, 
that as the hind wheels of the wagon rolled down the oval of 
one log it would push the fore wheels up the oval of the log 
in front, and thus all animal power could be dispensed with 
and the wagon be made self -moving. Well, we rolled and 
bumped over that sort of road, though we found that a little 
horseflesh was a necessity in front of our wheels. I thought, 
though, that it was too bad to have to pay toll at the end of 
this Crockett road, that had jolted out about half the religion 
I started in with, and more than half the sense, to say 
nothing of physical damages sustained in sundry parts and 



308 casket's book. 

places. I began to cast about in my mind how I could get 
a little fun out of the keeper of the gate, to restore my lost 
humor — and to save my two " bits/' knowing that the Legis- 
lature in chartering these pike roads, as they were called, 
had in many cases exempted the poor circuit rider from the 
greedy grasp of the toll-keeper. Having, however, some 
purse-pride in me, though goodness knows mine had nothing 
to excite that feeling except its emptiness, I concluded that 
I would make a joke out of it and save my dimes and my 
pride. Irtstead of seriously demanding to pass free of toll 
on my clerical rights I drove up to the gate. An ugly red- 
headed, freckled-faced, son of ugly parentage, who looked 
as if he had about three grains of uncommon sense, and 
no common sense at all, presented himself to collect the toll. 
I jocularly asked him if he charged preachers toll. He said, 
with, I thought, rather a mischevious twinkle in the corner 
of his off eye, that it depended on what sort they were. "Do 
you mean denominations?" "No," said he; "sensible 
preachers." "Well," said I, "I belong to that family." 
Said he : " If you do, you deceive your looks ; and how am 
I to know whether you are or not ? " " Well, ' ' said I, ' ' you 
will have to take my word for it." "Nary once, Mr. 
Preacher. ' ' My prospect for saving my dimes was growing 
beautifully less, and my chance of being sold was on the in- 
crease. ' ' How then, ' ' said I, ' ' will you satisfy yourself ? ' ' 
" Seeing," said he, " is believing, but hearing is the naked 
truth; so just stand up in your buggy and give us a 
sermont.'^ It being nearly dark, I declined to convince red- 
head of my ability. I told him he was too sharp for me ; 
come and get his money. After taking a good hard look at me, 
and another squint in his off eye, he replied : ' ' Well, strange 
preacher, you can't get through on the preach, but you can 
pass on your good looks. You don't owe this consarn a 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. S09 

cent." Now this was the unkindest cut of all, as I had the 
reputation then of being the ugliest preacher, if not the ugli- 
est man, in the State. And I had just been trying to con- 
vince my better-half that I was at least passably good-looking. 
I have held my own wonderfully well, so my friends tell me. 
I left him, wishing I had paid my money and said less. We 
drove on till dark. The toll-keeper had told us that two 
miles further on the road we would get a good place to stay 
all night. The prospect was for a dark night, and after 
leaving the swamps the roads began to get rough and broken, 
but with the promise of good cheer just ahead we merrily 
wended our weary way. Driving up to the gate of a good- 
looking, plantation house, and giving the usual hailing sign 
of hungry and weary travelers, a long, lank, slab-sided 
fellow made his appearance. T asked if we could get supper 
and lodging. He said he would see, and stepped back into 
the house. I said to wife: " That looks rather squally ; I 
fear he is but the junior partner in that concern." I pre- 
sume his wife was a little hard of hearing, and hope she was, 
and would not now put on mourning if I knew she could not 
hear at all. We heard him when he rather humbly asked her 
if we could stay. Her sharp ' ' No ' ' was distinctly heard by 
Us at twenty paces from the house and she in the room. I 
knew it made him jump, and made me know as well then 
as now that it meant no, and that the poor fellow had long 
ago delivered up his unmentionables and his manhood. He 
came out and told four lies in less than a minute, as reasons 
why we could not stay, and no doubt would have told four 
more in less time had I not suddenly hit my horse a sharp 
cut and left him. Poor beast, he died in profound ignorance 
of the cause of that blow with the whip. If it had not been 
that I had recently married a beautiful woman I expect I 
would have said a hard thing about that particular feminine. 



310 casket's book. 

Driving off down a long hill from his house — it was so dark 
I could not see the road — the wheel on the upper side struck 
a stump and the buggy ran for ten feet on two wheels. Do 
you think it turned over ? Bell has rung for church — 
must go. T. W. Casket. 



AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 

VII. 

I believe I left my buggy going at a rapid rate down hill, 
and on two wheels ; and to make a bad matter worse, it was 
a down hill two ways. The way we were going, straight 
ahead, and the way we were likely to go, to the right. The 
hill was about as steep one way as it could be, and about as 
steep the other. Now, you may feel anxious to know whether 
the buggy went over, and down the hill, and we fell out, or 
otherwise. I am happy to say it did neither, for, by my throw- 
ing my long body (that is that portion of it that was above 
the buggy seat) out over the side, I succeeding in checking 
the turn-over tendency of things, and balanced it back on 
the other wheels that had been whizzing around on the axles 
and off the ground, rather more amusing than safe. Had I 
been put up after a different model, such for instance, as 
the editor of the Standard^ I would not have had weight 
enough in the upper story to have turned the tide in affairs, 
and over and down we would have gone — wife and I — down, 
down ; no telling how far we would have been hurled at the 
speed we were going. We would most inevitably have been 
hurled down the hill until we struck the ground or some- 
thing else, for I confess I was driving just a little faster 
than I would have done had not that better half of the jun- 



AN OLD PREACHER S EXPERIENCE. 



311 



ior member of the firm matrimonial we had just passed, 
somewhat upset my Irish equilibrium, or in plain English, 
made me mad, by refusing to let us stay all night, when we 
offered to go supperless to bed and leave before breakfast 
in the morning. Had the vehicle turned over, as it came so 
near doing, I think that, perhaps, two lives lost would have 
been charged up to her account on the day of final reckoning. 
And while it remains true that we did not fall out and get 
killed, yet one of us, at least, came near falling from grace. 
We did not have as much left as the eccentric Peter Cart- 
wright had when he replied to the bishop's question : ' ' Brother 
C. are you growing in grace? " " In spots, bishop ! '* I don't 
think, just at that time, that it covered me even in spots. 
As soon as the wheels struck the ground, I reined my horse 
round and started back for the house, fully determined to 
remain there till morning light returned. But dear, good 
wife begged me out of my bad resolve, as she has out of a 
great many other meannesses, and would out of a great 
mau}^ more, had it not been for the mule that was and I fear 
is in my nature yet, that will not at all times yield to the 
right, even through the influence of her gentle persuasion. 
But I j^ielded at last, after a hard fight with self ; turned 
about and drove sulkily along in the dark, over the stumps 
and in the gullies, for several weary miles. I did no more 
fast driving, I let my readers know; not that night. At 
length our eyes were greeted with the rays of light from the 
blazing pine-knots on the hearth of an humble log cabin. 
They came shimmering and shining through the vacant spaces 
between the logs. The hut was inhabited by two old people, 
who had passed their three score and ten ; they were about 
retiring for the night, but on hearing how we had been 
treated, and that we had only lunched for dinner, the good 
old lady, true to her woman nature, would put on the skillet 



312 casket's book. 

and frying-pan and bake us some hoe-cake bread and fry 
some side meat and make a cup of good strong coffee. We 
made a feast with feelings that an epicure might have envied. 
We all slept in the same room, as there was but one. The 
good old man fed the last ear of corn he had and the last 
two bundles of oats he had, to my tired horse, and did not 
want to charge me a cent. Though my own purse was ex- 
tremely lean, I forced on him more than the value of what 
we received. I uttered a heartfelt prayer that the good 
and great God would bless their declining years. They, I 
presume, have passed away, and though their names are for- 
gotten by me, yet their aged forms and their noble charity 
to strangers, are as fresh in my memory as though I had 
seen them but yesterday. Their kindness will never pass 
from us till memory ceases to perform its functions. We 
reached home in safety without any other incidents by flood 
or field, now remembered by me. Thus ended our bridal 
tour. Amen. 

Up to this time we had not set up housekeeping for our- 
selves, and did not for some months after. There were only 
two slight impediments that prevented us from setting up 
for ourselves immediately. The first was, we had no house 
to keep, and the second was we had nothing to keep it with. 
But in a few months — as I was to devote one week in the 
month to the newly organized church in Gainsville, and the 
remainder in other places in Alabama and Mississippi, — we 
concluded to obviate the little difficulties above mentioned by 
keeping some other person's house, or rather, let the owners 
thereof keep us. We, in accordance with this programme, 
after due consideration and consultation, decided to leave 
wife's two little boys (not mine, mind you) at their grand- 
father's to go to school, and we would take up our lodging 
at a private boarding-house, kept by a Sister Brown, in 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 313 

Gainsville. Now, just think of it, you young preachers, 
who think you are badly treated because you can't get $1,- 
500 a year and board, with permission to stay with your 
new wives all the time. Think of poor me ; salary $500, 
perhaps^ wife and two children, remain with her one week in 
the month, unless she went with me, or stay with her all the 
time and starve, or loaf on her brothers or father. This last 
is but a modified form of stealing, whether done by preach- 
ers or members. Perhaps you are anxious to know how we 
managed to live. If so, please exercise your skill at guess- 
ing, for I am tired of writing. T. W. Caskey. 
Galveston, Texas, May 28. 



AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 

VIII. 

One month behind time ! Having spent five months in 
Texas, preached 113 discourses, traveled 2,500 miles, de- 
bated eight days and nights, crossed the gulf from Galves- 
ton city to New Orleans, when the waves were running higher 
than they had for many months and, even years, made sicker 
than I ever was or ever hope to be again, on reaching 
home I felt that I needed some rest and recreation after the 
long mental strain ; so I went to walking after a son of 
Balaam in front of a plow ; I fear some of my readers may 
think there was another at the rear ; that is, if any of my 
readers are like the good sister in a certain city where I 
preached, who washed her clothing by moonshine in the back 
garden^ to keej) from disgracing herself in the estimation of 



314 casket's book. 

the upper- tendom, or a certain class of members of a church 
that failed to pay their quarterly dues ; I tried for some 
weeks to get it, and failing, told them in the event of sick- 
ness, a funeral, or any case requiring a pastoral visit, they 
would find me, after the following Sunday, on the corner, 
sleeves rolled up and a leathern apron on, hammering iron, 
unless I was paid. I need hardly add that the money was 
forthcoming. Though I narrated this incident in lecturing 
the brethren of a certain church in Texas, and one of the 
elders said that had I been preaching for that church I could 
not have pleased them better, and that one-half the members 
would have been at the shop Monday morning, before break- 
fast, to get their horses shod on credit. But whither am I 
rambling? I believe I will leave my Yankee readers to exer- 
cise their gift at guessing how I made out to keep the souls 
and bodies of so many in family together, and all non-pro- 
ducers, on a salary of from $300 to $500, while I devote this 
letter to those who were my co-workers in those, the 
days that "tried men's souls" — at least preachers' souls. 
Churches few and far between, and though not wanting in 
ability J yet wanting in everything else needed to keep a 
preacher alive, laboring under the pleasing delusion — the 
dream of avarice, while sleeping in the cradle, rocked by the 
hands of some of our earlier preaching brethren — a free 
GOSPEL. Among the first of the noble spirits who sympa- 
thized with my ministerial weakness, when I first tried to 
preach, was Jefferson H. Johnson, of Utica, Hinds county, 
Mississippi, one of nature's noblemen; a ripe scholar, a 
good logician, with some pathos, of deep-toned piety, but of 
rather an ungainly figure. He was known all over the country 
by the rather unclassic cognomen of ' ' Legs. ' ' He taught 
school, farmed, and preached ; did much good, and aided 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 315 

much in building up a number of churches in Hinds and ad- 
joining counties. He moved to Missouri, I think, about 
1844, and in a few years crossed over the death river. 

Gen. William Clark ^ of Jackson. I preached more, per- 
haps, with him in those early days than an}^ other. He was a 
man of wealth. As a business man, for self or the public, he 
had no superior. He served as State Treasurer for a number 
of years. A better officer the State never had. Extremely 
conscientious in regard to his business transactions, prompt 
to the very day in meeting his business liabilities ; with him, 
for a man to give his note, payable the first day of July, and 
fail to pay on that day, it stood as a forfeiture of his word 
and a loss of confidence. In vain you might plead custom ; 
b3 was as rigid as Shylock for the pound of flesh. I bor- 
rowed twenty dollars of him, gave my note payable on a cer- 
tain day, forgot the whole thing. Some months after 
maturity he reminded me of my failure. I asked him if he 
had needed the money. He had not, and did not know that 
he ever would. " Then," said I, "no harm is done." But 
he contended that great harm was done — not to him, but to 
me. I hope no poor preacher will ever need such a lecture 
as I received from the good old man. He closed by beg- 
ging me never to promise to pay unless I had the ability to 
comply, and then never to forget the day on which notes and 
accounts fell due. Happy would it have been for me if I 
had been governed by his advice. He spent a long and use- 
ful life, and was a first-class preacher. He died in 1859, in 
full assurance of faith. Connected with him officially and 
in the ministry was Brother James E. Mathews. He was 
Auditor at the same time that Brother Clark was Treasurer, 
a man of the Websterian order of mind — a giant either in 
the pulpit or on the rostrum. Unfortunately for his influence 



316 casket's book. 

in the former, he was too often on the latter, though no breath 
of suspicion was ever breathed against his morals, as a man, 
an officer, or a preacher. But party politics ran high, and 
there was strong prejudice against preachers holding office. 
He had a large family, and was never rich. If he could 
have devoted all his time to preaching, there would have 
been few that would have been his equals. He had, how- 
ever, one failing — that was, he never reached the close of a 
subject. I have often heard him for three hours and he waS 
not really half through. I have heard of preachers discuss- 
ing subjects to exhaustion ; he did not belong to that class. 
I preached his funeral in 1868. Dr. William E. Mathews 
was another Boanerges — no relation of James E. He was 
living in Wilkinson county, practicing his . profession and, 
preaching. He was the most successful preacher I ever 
knew, to have no passion. His logic was as sharp as a 
needle ; keen, cutting sarcasm, withering, scathing. He 
never appealed to the sympathies, never touched the imagi- 
nation, had naught to do with the emotional nature. Indeed, 
as far as his preaching was concerned, man might as well 
have been a bundle of thoughts and had no emotional nature 
at all ; and yet few among us in his day, and with his sur- 
roundings, accomplished more than he. Many of the churches 
in the Southern portion of the State were built up and nursed 
by him as far back as 1830. He passed to his reward some 
years since. I do not recollect now the year of his depart- 
ure for the better land. Brother C. O. Ferguson was among 
the seals to his ministry, with whom I labored in 1844-5, a 
young man of a high order of talent, trained up to the work 
of an evangelist by Brother Mathews, whom he always loved 
as a father. His sun of life went down before it reached 
meridian height, cut down in the morning of his manhood 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 317 

by that fell destroyer, consumption. Peace to the sleeping 
dust of these my faithful co-workers in the vineyard. 

T. W. Casket. 
Jackson, Miss., June 16. 



AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 
IX. 

[in MISSISSIPPI FROM 1843.] 

One more chapter devoted to the memory of my co-labor- 
ers in the days gone by and the years that come not again 
before I take up again the broken and tangled thread of my 
personal experience. As memory calls the roll of those heroes 
of the reformation in those pioneer days, when none but the 
brave and the true entered the lines to do battle in that part 
of the field, where friends were few and foes were many, my 
heart grows very, very sad that so few answer to their names. 
I fondly hope they will all respond with the victor's shout 
when the trumpet shall sound. Jas. A. Butler, lately de- 
ceased, came near being a great man — one little cog was 
wanting in his mental machinery, or got misplaced by his 
early unfortunate religious education. He worked for years 
in the galling gyves of Galvanism ; looked at the great and 
loving God from their standpoint, decreeing the largest num- 
ber of Adam's race to the rayless regions of endles woe for 
no fault of theirs — having His own Son put to death to ap- 
pease his own consuming wrath — to save but the definite 
number that he could have saved as well without as with his 
death. Butler being of an impressive temperament, his creed 
infused its poison into his nature, drying up the fountain, 



318 casket's book. 

from whence flowed the milk of human kindness, giving a 
hard, stern, unyielding and sometimes vindictive cast to 
his feelings and style. Against those errors that came near 
wrecking his bark, his remorselessly severe sarcasm, ridi- 
cule, wit, argument, and eloquence were poured forth in tor- 
rents on almost all occasions. He never seemed to realize 
that these, his foes, were dead, but would, and did continue 
to thrust the sword of truth through and through their thrice 
dead bodies. In looking over his history as far as it fell un- 
der my observation, and that was for many years, he sacri- 
ficed more time, more talent, more feeling, more money and 
did less good than any preacher of any church I have ever 
known. And yet it was not his fault, for he was devoted to 
the cause, head, heart, purse and life — would have gone 
cheerfully to the stake for it. A striking contrast with Bro. 
Butler was Alexander Graham, of Marion, Ala. They were 
for many years co-workers together. Graham had the mind 
of a giant and the heart of a woman. The most profound 
logician I ever heard, and yet as tender in his feelings as 
John, the beloved disciple ; a ripe scholar, and yet you might 
hear him preach for years and never learn from his preach- 
ing that he knew any other language than his mother tongue. 
With all his greatness he was as unassuming as a child, as 
near a faultless man as I ever knew. If he ever found out 
his own greatness, no one knew it. Of course such a man 
was a power for good in all the walks of life. He left the 
world without an enemy to leave behind him. Bro. Kobert 
Usry, of Columbus, Miss., was, at the age of 40, a butcher 
and an infidel, without education or social culture. He had 
tried in his youth to get religion, had done all that the 
preacher told him, but failed. He then, as a matter of 
course, turned infidel, denounced all religion a humbug and 
a delusion. His associations in life were with the more igno- 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 319 

rant and vicious portion of the town. At the age of 50 he 
was' a workman that need not be ashamed. Under the 
preaching of the lamented Faning he obeyed the Gospel and 
soon began preparing for the ministry. . He followed his 
calling, and at nights and odd times studied English gram- 
mar, logic, rhetoric, mental and moral philosophy, and ac- 
quired as much knowledge of Greek as many pedants who 
indulge in spouting that much-abused language in debate on 
the subject of baptism. He improved his mind more rap- 
idly than any man I ever knew, and rapidly rose in the esti- 
mation of the church and world, yet he retained his humble- 
mindedness. He was the only strictly conscientious plagi- 
arist I ever knew. When he first began to preach he would 
borrow some of my discourses that pleased him ; having a 
good memory, and hearing them a few times, he could preach 
them better than I could, for he had more pathos. If he 
preached at a place where I had not, and preached one of my 
sermons, he would tell me and say: " Brother Tom, if you 
preach on that subject you must change it, unless you wish 
to be accused of stealing Bob Usry's thunder. I preached 
it just as I learned it from you." It was not long till he 
could walk erect without stilts borrowed from any man. 
Had he been cut loose from the care of a large family so 
he could have devoted his entire time to study and preach- 
ing he would have left a name long after he slept with his 
fathers. Noble, good old brother, memory calls up the 
many long rides we traveled together, and the meetings we 
held. He leaves a son to fill his place in the vacated pulpit. 
Of him I know but little, as we have never met ; but this I 
know, that if he worthily fills his father's place, he will be a 
great and good man. There are others I would like to name, 
but forbear lest I grow tedious. T. W. Caskey. 

Pelton, Texas, July 18. 



320 casket's book. 

AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. ' 

LETTEK X. 

I fear that my Yankee readers will get tired " guessing" 
how I managed to live on $500 a year, with a wife and two 
little boys. I confess I have somewhat tried their patience 
at their favorite amusement, as I have left them at it for 
now more than two long months. I owe them an apolog3\ I 
have been traveling in the backwoods of Texas, where paper 
is scarce, and of poor quality ; where I felt like doing any- 
thing else except writing and stealing — may have had a 
slight inclination towards the latter. I rented a little farm 
and put the boys and negro woman to working it. Hired a 
negro man to help them, for which I paid $150 hire, fed and 
clothed him and paid his tax. The cotton worm struck my 
crop that year in August, and I made just enough, pre- 
cisely, to pay his hire, minus fifty dollars. So, you see, 
that helped out my little salary wonderfully ! Add to this I 
lost my saddle horse the same year. I was compelled, of 
course, to buy another, or stop circuit-riding, or undignify 
the calling by converting it into circuit-walking, which I had 
some idea of doing, and was only prevented by one thing — 
that is, I was most too lazy. So I purchased me a quadru- 
ped on the outside of which I could ride and fill my appoint- 
ments. I was to pay for him $70 out of my next cotton 
crop that the worms eat up, or did not eat, just as it might 
happen. He was a fine horse, if I did get him for $70, for 
preachers were low-priced then and so were other animals. 
While my new horse was perfectly willing that I should sit 
on him as long as I pleased when he and I traveled alone, 
when I wanted to take my better half along then we got into 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 321 

a muss. She could not ride behind as far as we wanted to 
travel. To this he did not object, as I had tried him short 
distances. The next best thing, I thought, was to put him 
in a pair of shafts with four wheels attached thereto. But 
I had cause to change my mind on that subject, for the un- 
gallant rascal utterly refused to carry even a handsome lady 
in that fashion, and entered his protest by rearing up behind 
and throwing out his heels in all directions, and making 
things fly around rather lively for either comfort or amuse- 
ment, smashing things up generally. Fortunately nothing 
got hurt much, except the old buggy and his rear legs. As 
I had alwaj^s had such bad luck with horse flesh, and as he 
utterly refused to work in a buggy, and fearing that he 
would go as all the others had gone, either die, run off, get 
stolen, or kill himself, and not feeling able to lose so much, 
I decided to play Methodist cricuit-rider, and swap him off. 
A gentleman had a very large fine gray horse, that went 
blind, worked well in harness, held up his head, moved 
proudly, was really a fine, showy fellow. The owner gave 
me Blind Charlie and as much boot as my horse cost me, 
and I got rid of the anxiety and fear about losing my horse 
into the bargain. So off wife and I started for a trip of 200 
miles, leaving the little boys at their grandfather's to go to 
school till time to pick cotton. We rolled ahead splendidly 
for three days. I was delighted with Blind Charlie. The 
fourth day we had to make some forty miles, to a relation of 
my wife's, who would be glad to see and entertain us, and I 
glad to avoid a hotel bill. The day was dark and misty, and 
my watch deceived me in regard to time. We rested longer 
at noon than we ought, thinking that we had plenty of time. 
Traveling through the piney woods, where there were no 
mile posts, I found, when dark began to creep through the 

21 



322 casket's book. 

pines, we were six miles from our destination, and no house 
nearer. It began to — the Pedo mode of making infants 
members of their church — pretty lively. The night began to 
grow as dark as their theology, and as ugly as the mourn- 
ing bench practice, and for the first time it struck my mind 
that, whatever else a blind horse may be good for, he is not 
the best in the world for driving black sheep of a dark night, 
nor pulling a buggy with all the wife a poor fellow has, 
through a dark piney woods with the road full of stumps, 
with an occasional gulley thrown in for good count. The 
woods and road being alike covered with the straw or leaves 
shed from the trees, forming a thick carpet, making it diffi- 
cult to tell the road from the woods, even by feeling. For- 
tunately the lightning kept pretty constantly flashing and 
flapping its fiery wings about among the thick darkness. 
Nice predicament for a preacher paid the enormous sum of 
$500 (provided he got it), six miles from nowhere, blind 
horse, dark night, stumpy road, rickety old buggy, wife lia- 
ble to be turned over and find herself gone dead , and rain- 
ing at that. How would you have felt, you kid-gloved city 
clerical gentry, who can't walk two squares without your 
umbrellas spread over your brain pans ? Being a preacher, 
you could not, or ought not curse, and then there was not 
much to bless. I expect you would have sat down and boo- 
hooed like you did when your fond mother gave you a 
lesson in Paley's moral philosophy on the chapter of evils — 
enjoyment by contrast — feeling good when it quits hurting. 
I confess I felt like doing that very same thing, and had 
I been alone, doubt not I would have done it. But there 
was dear wife sitting up in the buggy, cheerfully chatting 
away, not realizing the danger she was in, and I could not 
get my consent to play baby before her. So I choked back 



AI^" OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 323 

the gathering tears and suppressed the bitter implication on 
the stinginess of churches, who would not pay enough to 
enable their preacher to own a horse that had eyes, and 
plodded on, feeling for the road and leading Charlie. I 
thought he tried how akwardly he could walk, too, for I 
could see no reason then, nor now, why a blind horse could 
not walk as well in the dark as in. the light. He would oc- 
casionally step too far, or I did not step far enough, and he 
would tread on that part of my anatomical structure that 
the serpent was to bruise. Well, Charlie did it very effect- 
ually. You would not have made a preacher in those days, 
with that sort of schooling, would you? Don't ask me if I 
would if it were to go over again, for I won't tell. I got 
awfully tired, and the lightning getting tired, too, and stop- 
ping to rest, or from some other cause ceasing to light me on 
my weary way, I sat down on a stump to rest, and there I 
am determined to rest awhile. T. W. Casket. 

Sherman, Texas, August 25. 



AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 

LETTER XI. 

When I parted from my readers last, wife and I and blind 
Charlie were going down hill at a break-neck speed. It was 
in a lane quarter of a mile in length, considerably down hill. 
On either side was a high bank, through which the road had 
been cut. A deep ditch had been cut on either side, and the 
road made crowning in the middle. I promptly decided that 
the only way to save our necks was to break Charlie's ; for of 



324 casket's book. 

all the fools that ever did get frightened and scared a blind 
horse is the biggest, except perhaps a blind mule. I never 
tried one of them, and don't intend to. I have tried them 
when they could see, and was fully satisfied with the experi- 
ment without going it blind. I decided to run Charlie's 
head against the perpendicular bank on my left. The leaps 
he was making I knew would carry him across the narrow 
ditch and butt his head squarely against the bank at locomo- 
tive velocity. So I told my wife to sit firm and hold fast, 
suddenly throwing all my weight and strength on the left 
rein, I turned his head bankward. Man proposes, Provi- 
dence, or fate, or accident — I apprehend, too, God's fixed 
law — disposes. That is, God does it through law. For 
just as Charlie made the leap which I thought would carry 
him to a broken neck, the lines slipped through my hands, 
carrying some of the skin of my poor fingers on them, and 
making what was left feel uncomfortably hot. This sudden 
change of front threw him straight along the road again, and 
the buggy, on making the needed circle to follow the horse, 
found its axles on the edge of the ditch bank and both wheels 
spinning and whirling round, like the senses of a Methodist 
convert at a camp-meeting, not touching the ground any more 
than they do the borders of common or uncommon sense. 
So there we were, and as father Abraham the second said: 
"Nobody hurt, not even a string broke." But it gave us a 
pretty considerable jar, so we thought, as did the old 
woman the first railroad ride she took. The cars ran off, 
tumbling her heels over head. Gathering herself up, she 
quietly asked the conductor if he had not pulled up rather 
suddenly. We were prepared for a sudden pull up, but not 
exactly in that way. We soon got things to rights — but 
what was to be done ? For us to think of sitting behind that 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 325 

blind, scared fool and riding, I would as soon have tried a 
streak of lightning, if somebody could put it in harness. 
After consultation, we agreed that it was decidedly the safest 
for us both to foot it for a while and see if Charlie's big 
scare would not subside. For two miles we trudged along, 
I holding by the bit and gently leading blind Charlie in the 
way he ought to go. The sun getting hot, and wife's cheeks 
growing more flushed than comported with her style of 
beauty, and Charlie quieting down somewhat, I persuaded 
wife to get in and I would still lead. So for half that long, 
hot day I walked, and on good road I trotted some, so as to 
get him tired. About noon my wife begged me to get in the 
buggy and risk the chances, saying that we might as well be 
killed together as me to kill myself walking in the hot sun, 
and as I was about mad enough with stingy churches, blind 
horses and poor preachers not to care a great deal whether I 
lived or not, I jumped in. I guess for the balance of that 
day I made faster time than was ever made over that road by 
any horse, eyes or no eyes. We slept that night without 
rocking. I suppose I had as well dispose of Charlie and get 
to something else. A few years after I moved to Palo Alto, 
in Mississippi, still driving Charlie, and he still occasionally 
smashing things up. In the part of country in which I 
lived, near the village, it was prairie land. J owned at that 
time a chunk of an African by the name of James — for 
short we called him Jim — ten years old. If there ever was 
any more devilment wrapped up within the same quantity of 
hide — black or white — I had not n^et with it then, nor have 
I yet. Charlie was Jim's plow horse. We turned the horses 
out on the prairie at night. It was a part of Jim's duties to 
get them up in the morning, which he did by slipping up on 
Charlie's blind side and capturing him, and running the 



326 casket's book. 

others home. He was a fearless rider, and Charlie had the 
fleetest heels of any horse that grazed on the prairie. I can 
now see that little black imp as he fearlessly dashes across 
those rolling prairies like an Arab across the desert. One 
Sunday evening Jim came up on foot, Charlie's flanks flecked 
with foam, and looking as wild as a maniac, considering he 
had no eyes to look out of. I could not imagine what had 
gotten into the horse, and of course just then Jim was a first 
class know-nothing. Turning the horses into the lot, a board 
happened to rattle. Charlie had like to have jumped out of 
his hide, and up against the stable, nearly knocking out what 
little brains he had left. I caught an idea. By a somewhat 
vigorous application of a small piece of board to one end of 
Jim it developed, as I was certain it would, into the fact that 
Jim had tied some pieces of board to Charlie's rear append- 
age — known in vulgar parlance as a horse's tail. The man 
who would have trusted his life near that horse's tail with 
wheels behind him, or anything else that would have made a 
noise like the contact of two boards, would have been a 
greater dunce than I was, and I was right hard to beat. 
Charlie was effectually unnerved. Whatever became of him 
I am yet profoundly ignorant. He mysteriously disap- 
peared, and was never seen or heard of in those parts 
again. This though was some two years after the board 
difficulty. He could still be plowed. Whether Jim tried the 
board programme over again and he is running yet, or 
whether he wandered off and fell into a ditch, the deponent 
saith not. He disappeared on Sunday, which has a slight 
squinting boardward. The last I heard of Jim he was in 
Minnesota. Hope the grasshoppers have not got him. The 
last I heard of Charlie — well I did not hear of him at all. 
Peace to his mane, and tail too. T. W. Casket. 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 327 

AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 

LETTER XII. 

From 1845 to 1849 I labored both in Alabama and Missis- 
sippi. In Alabama aided by Dr. Hooker, B. F. Hall, A. 
Graham, of Marion, Alabama. We built up churches at 
Clinton, Mount Hebron, Gainesville, and near Springfield. 
I believe I had the aid of the brethren mentioned only at 
one point, and that was at Clinton. James A. Butler aided 
at the first meeting at Gainesville. The church at Clinton, 
dead ; at Gainesville, ditto ; Mount Hebron still living and 
doing well, I believe. The next trip that looms up to mem- 
ory's vision from the dim and distant past, that Bettie ac- 
companied me, I borrowed a horse that had good eyes, 
from my father-in-law. We left our humble home. The 
morning was rather threatening for open-top buggy travel- 
ing. But my appointments would not wait. We had not 
gone more than six miles when it began to rain, and if it 
stopped long enough to get breath till next morning, I was 
not fortunate enough to find it out. We had a large um- 
brella, but after a while the wind arose and blew a young 
hurricane. One gust more fierce than any preceding one 
caught the umbrella and turned it completely wrong side out, 
and all my mechanical ingenuity never turned it back again. 
I don't believe that it is back yet, as we threw it out of the 
buggy into the slush. Twelve miles on we crossed the Scoo- 
bachs, two large creeks which run from some place into the 
Beckbee. I knew we could not recross them, had we been 
so disposed. Besides, it has always been an article in my 
creed never to turn. I did not, however, that time find it 
very full of comfort. At five o' clock we found ourselves in 
front of a brawling, rushing little creek, which was no creek 
at all, unless just after such a flood of rain as had poured 



328 



CASKEY S BOOK. 



out on US all the day long. In the piney woods, hog-wallow 
land, nearly night, five miles from the nearest house ahead, 
no chance at all of getting backward, wet — well, that is 
hardly the word. I never felt the black gnats bite so vicious- 
ly before nor since. Night coming on and no matches, I 
undressed in part and waded across the nasty, muddy brook, 
and the water was red and thick with piney woods clay. 
Then wife drove over, I walking by the buggy to keep the 
current from turning it upside down. Then we had five 
miles of the meanest mud that mortal man or beast ever 
traveled over. In the prairies you are down all the time ; 
in this you are up on a pine root, then down in the glutinous 
red mud, that adheres as close as the sins of a hypocrite. 
Night came on long before we gained our resting-place. 
But a huge log fire and a good hot supper made us soon for- 
get the toils of the day. The next morning the whole coun- 
try was inundated. I made one comment at the close of 
that dark day, and that was, that a woman who would sit by 
a man through such a day and such a rain and not abuse him 
for traveling and preaching for $400 a year, deserved a bet- 
ter fate than to be tied to such a gump, and I think so yet. 
The large creek in front of us, running near DeKalb, name 
forgotten, had overflowed banks and bottoms, carried away 
the abutments of the bridge, so we had to take roundance 
on it via Summerville. Beaching a point between that town 
and Louisville, ia®thing but a sea of water could be seen 
from the bridge. I off with my toggery again, waded half 
a mile through the swamp, came back fixed up, waded ahead, 
wife driving, reached the first slough, water up to my chin, 
horse swimming, buggy afloat ; but as it was back water, no 
danger, wife not scared. So for the present please let her 
float, while I wade and keep my mouth and nose above high 
water mark. T. W. Caskey. 




AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 329 

AN OLD PREACHER'S EXPERIENCE. 
XIII. 

'HE sound of the last cannon has died away in the 
distance. The smoke and dust of the battle have 
been wafted away by the flying winds of heaven. 
"^p} Victory has perched on the banner of the stars and 
stripes. And now, palsied be the hand that shall ever be 
upraised to pluck one of those stars from its place in the 
blue field of the glorious sisterhood. Long, long may those 
striped folds wave in peace triumphant over a united peo- 
ple, a nation blessed of God! The flag of the Confederacy 
is furled and folded ; laid forever in the dust, where her 
heroic dead sleep. For four long years of the unequal 
internal conflict, their strong right hands vainly upheld it. 
The glad shouts of the victors and the groans of the van- 
quished together to heaven ascend! Angels, perhaps, 
rejoiced in the joyous shouts of the victors, but sighed 
for the sorrows of the vanquished. The dead, who periled 
all that man holds dear this side of heaven, quietly sleep 
side by side. " They sleep their last sleep. They have 
fought their last battle. No sound shall awake them to 
conflict again ; and blistered be the tongue that utters one 
word of reproach, standing over the graves of our great- 
hearted dead who fell on either side ; I mean those who went 
into the struggle on the great principles involved; who 
believed they were right. The mercenary hireling had my 
contempt in life, and no pity in his death. It was more honor 
than his worthless life deserved, to meet with and come to 
death at the hands of honest men on the battle-field. That 



330 casket's book. 

of the scaffold and a rope would have been the death he 
ought to have died. 

"With these introductory thoughts, " The Old Preacher " 
resumes his *' Experience." In following him amidst the 
events and incidents of his eventful and checkered experience 
in the years following peace, the reader will find much that 
is as gloomy as the grave and sad as the wail of death ; 
some things, bright as the glistening sunbeams, and as 
joyous as the song of birds. "When the sound of the last 
bugle blast that called armed hosts to the feast of death 
was heard, the white-winged dove of peace spread its wings 
over a land drenched in blood. The Old Preacher found 
himself at Meridian, Miss., more than one hundred miles 
from his former home in Jackson, Miss. — alas, his no 
more, — with wife and four small children, two of his former 
slave women, now free, with three orphan darkey children, 
and one other child — all that had reniained of his posses- 
sions ! "With fifteen dollars in gold that one of my 
step son's had given to his mother some time during the 
war, together with one cow — all that was left of my fine 
stock of cattle. I had taken two with me, but one of them 
killed herself eating a Yankee soldier's corn-meal, much to 
his regret, and mine too ! The other cattle had gone into 
the stomachs of the Confederate soldiers, except what they 
allowed the Federals to capture. My two darkey women 
stuck to me like two — well, darkey women. They had 
been faithful among the faithless. One of them had a young 
babe ; and she had nursed ours. The other was but a young 
girl, wholly incapable of taking care of herself. The 
orphans were the children of the best slave woman that 
ever lived, who had faithfully served her mistress from the 
time she was six years old until she was thirty-five, when 
she was laid to rest in the house of the dead, and the entire 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 831 

household mourned and wept unselfish tears. She had been 
friend, companion and servant, and cheered many of the 
sad and lonely hours when my patient and long-suffering 
wife was waiting and watching for my delayed return to our 
humble home. In the days of our poverty, she had nursed 
our children, and they called her mamma. She lived a Chris- 
tian life, and died in faith and hope. It makes my poor old 
heart inexpressibly sad after the lapse of all the passing 
years, thus to call up her memory, and I think it not unmanly 
to drop a tear on this page. Although her skin was black, 
her heart was white and pure. 

I could not turn her children out to starve, although 
satisfied that they would leave me so soon as they would get 
to be any account, and I was not disappointed in the result ; 
but I kept, fed and clothed them for years, until they got too 
big for any breeches that I could get for them, and then 
they walked off. Some of my former slaves came back and 
remained with me until I could feed them no longer — until 
they eat up all that I and they made — plantation stock 
and all ! 

I became disgusted with the whole outfit, and ran off to 
Texas, and left them much to their regret, for I had been a 
good nut for them to crack, and well had they done the job, 
extracting the last particle of meat that was in the shell ; 
and, yet if an hour of want should ever come to any of the 
children of the mother dead — so sadly mourned by us^ — ^I 
would divide with them the last crust; but, I have antici- 
pated and must turn back to Meridian, not as it now is, but 
as it then was ; and when I say that it was the dirtiest, most 
filthy and villainous hole in all the Confederate States I do 
not use the language of exaggeration, but of simple truth. 
Nice people lived there, of course, but the general public part 
of it was abominable. The gathering place for the soldiers, 



332 casket's book. 

Confederate and Federal ; the stockade for the poor prisoners ; 
the crowded and badly-kept hotels for the traveling masses 
of soldiers and citizens who were able to pay for poor beef, 
badly cooked ; a biscuit out of third-class flour, and any 
quantity of saleratus, bad lard, and half baked ; with a dirty 
cup of a dirty slop, made of a quart of water, a few grains of 
rye, badly parched, and burned molasses ; and then catch a 
few hours of restless sleep, provided you were so fortunate 
as to get to tumble into a bed, to which clean sheets were 
utter strangers, and which was yet warm from an occupant 
who had just tumbled out and was almost half way to the 
depot, to catch the up or down train. To give to the reader, 
unacquainted with the place and the time, some idea of the 
estimation in which the place was held by our soldiers, and 
the feeling was universal with them, although oar hospitals 
were not really so very bad, but things suffered in their 
estimation from the general character of the place, so that 
the sick soldier dreaded the hospitals then little less than the 
cold grave ; and if they could have had their own way many 
of them would have risked the grave to avoid the hospital. 
Just above Meridian is Lauderdale Springs, a cool, well 
shaded and finely watered village, a delightful place for 
hospitals, and they were well kept, which made them very 
popular. They would get crowded, and under a barbarous 
order of red tape, prohibiting letting the sick be sent except 
to the next nearest hospital. Lauderdale was daily sending 
her excess of sick down to Meridian. My health having 
failed, I had been transferred from field to post duty, and 
was then hospital chaplain. One morning I walked down to 
the depot with one of the surgeons, expecting as usual a lot 
of sick on the train. They were sent, as we expected, from 
Lauderdale. About an average lot of sick, some not much 
sick, and able to walk ; others could walk with some help ; 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 333 

others on litters which had to be borne by men from depot 
to hospital. Among these there was a youth, perhaps twenty 
years old, who was very sick. He was beyond doubt the 
most ghostly, ghastly, haggard and emaciated specimen of a 
dirt and persimmon eating North Carolinian that ever left 
the tar-heel State for tented field. There was not much of 
him left except eyes and stomach, and these were out of all 
proportion to the rest of his fever-smitten body. A crowd 
gathered round his litter and showed their sympathy, while 
in pity they looked upon his skeleton form and pallid face. 
I thought I caught a slight gleam of humor twinkling in the 
corner of his enormously large eyes. The surgeon stepped 
up to the litter, and with considerable irritation in his voice, 
said, "In God's name, what could the surgeons have been 
thinking of to ship you down here ? They are a disgrace to 
their profession." I give his reply in his own words, which 
showed his and the estimate of others in regard to the place. 
He spoke very low, for his voice was feeble. Very earnestly 
he said, "Don't blame the good doctors ; they did it in kind- 
ness. They held a consultation on my case, and decided 
that I was bound to die, that in three days I was gwine 
ter leave these low grounds of sin and sorrer." Here 
he paused, apparently for want of breath. The surgeon 
said, " Why, then, did they send you? " He replied " They 
knew that when I died I was gwine straight to hell, and that 
three days in this cussed place would make me glad to 
scoop, and throw in my old clothes ter boot ! " The crowd 
fairly yelled, while a grim smile played around the corners 
of his mouth. I said to the surgeon, ' ' He is not going 
to die," and die he did not, but got well, and was quite 
a pet at the hospital ; but he vowed that if neither the 
doctors or the disease, nor both together, could kill him, 
that he would make the swop, if he had to do it by suicide. 



334 casket's book. 

for in that place he would not stay. One more anecdote 
and I pass on to my own surroundings. Charles Clark was 
at the time governor of the State. The militia had been 
called out and put into camps and drill. This developed an 
amount of occult diseases among men who had been regarded 
as remarkably healthy. The examining surgeons had a 
good time of it. All sorts of new dodges and tricks were 
resorted to to escape enrollment. The Governor was a 
grim old warrior, and had but one guiding star, and 
that was duty. So he had but little sympathy or patience with 
those who were trying to shirk ; and the boys said he was 
after the "malish" with a sharp stick. He had been almost 
fatally wounded in the fight at Baton Rouge, and doubtless 
would have died, had not his enemies generously allowed 
him to go to New Orleans, where, under the surgical skill of 
the justly celebrated Dr. Stone, he recovered. But he was 
a mere wreck of his former manly self — one leg several 
inches shorter than the other. He had a tap on the ball of 
his shoe-sole, and on the heel ; walked on crutches ; wore an 
old slouched white hat that flopped about his ears ; dressed in 
an old suit of gray jeans, spun, wove, and made by the Mis- 
sissippi Government — old Confederate uniform worn out. 
He came down to Meridian to visit the camps, and look after 
his special pets, and see how the M. D's. and the diseased were 
making it. Standing on the platform talking to other old 
friends, and self, I noticed a keen-eyed, sharp-faced, tow- 
headed urchin, about ten years old, that I had frequently 
seen poking about the headquarters of the examining sur- 
geons, and seemed much interested in sharply scanning the 
numerous applicants for discharge. He was deliberately 
walking round his Excellency, and critically examining him 
from foot to head, and back again to foot. Finally, plant- 
ing himself squarely in front of the Governor, and looking 



335 

up into his face, he said, " Old fellow, you are pretty sharp, 
pretty well fixed up, but it won't win ; old Clark will have 
you in the ' malish,* and don't you forget it; you can bet 
your bottom dollar on it," and then coolly walked off, while 
the Governor and the crowd enjoyed a laugh such as does 
not come along every day in this world of tears. That boy 
some day will turn up in Congress, or in the penitentiary. 
But I have nearly forgotten my own troubles while calling 
up these amusing reminiscences — a passing comment on 
that order forbidding all furloughs except to next hospital, 
which cost us great demoralization in our patriotism, and 
many valuable lives. The order was conceived in sin and 
brought forth in iniquity. It allowed the surgeon no dis- 
cretionary power. The man might be his bosom friend, in 
whose honor he would trust his all ; a man of culture, 
talent, true as steel ; his home might be in half a mile 
of the hospital. He perils limb and life for country; is 
wounded in the fight ; borne mangled to the hospital. His 
wife, with tear-bathed face, pleads with the eloquence of 
angels that she may take his bleeding body to his own pleas- 
ant room at home, and nurse him back to health again. But 
she pleads in vain ; the surgeon is compelled to refuse, and 
does so with a sad heart, while a curse falls from his lips on 
the heartless order — while the wounded patriot says : '* Is 
this the return a grateful country makes her sons, who bare 
their bosoms to the leaden storms of death! " He feels his 
love of country ebbing away with his blood ; and a pain 
sharper than he feels from wounds tortures his heart ; because 
he is classed with cowards and deserters ! When the battle 
of Shiloh was fought I was hospital agent for my State, and 
was running the hospital at the State University at Oxford, 
Miss. Dr. Isom was the Confederate surgeon, and the only 
Confederate oflacial. All others were State. Our capacity 



336 casket's book. 

was for a thousand men. He had been entreated often to let 
the sick be taken home and tenderly nursed ; but he could 
not. After the fight was over they crowded the wounded 
on us — sent one morning a train with two hundred sick and 
wounded, after being informed that we were already full. 
The Doctor and I entered our protest against them being 
put off. They were not put off. The conductor switched 
off the train, and on he went. The perplexed M.D. did not 
know what to do. The order, " No furloughs," staring him 
in the face. He said : ' ' What am I to do ? " Said I : " You 
do nothing; it is my turn to do." I walked back to the 
hospital and issued an order to the surgeons to select from 
their respective wards two hundred patients who could be 
moved into the country. I sent out couriers to tell the people 
to bring in conveyances for their friends, many of whom 
lived in the country. Before the sun went down I had two 
hundred vacant beds filled with the suffering ; had snapped 
the cord of red-tapism in twain. The next morning brought 
two hundred more. I went through the same programme. 
Told Dr. Isom to dispatch to Medical Director, Dr. Ford, to 
send on his whole army of sick and wounded, and when I 
filled up that county there were plenty of others. We never 
lost a single man by death or desertion. They recovered more 
rapidly than they did in the hospital. Fresh country air, 
kind friends, cheerful and smiling faces, was the medicine 
the poor fellows needed. We dealt with men and not with 
beasts. I have penned these lines in the interest of outraged 
humanity. And should the tocsin of war ever again be heard 
in this great and glorious country of ours (which God in his 
mercy forbid ! ) may no such brutal order again disgrace the 
pages of civilization ; may no such cruel treatment be meted 
out to gentlemen soldiers. Pardon this long digression, and 
we return to my own unenviable experience just at that time. 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 837 

I was somewhat in the condition, as regards the children 
depending on me, as the martyred woman of sanctified 
memory. Though it has been an unsettled question about 
the number she really had, whether the one at the breast 
was a part of the nine or was the tenth. I could count mine- 
Four white, and four not so. 

The reflections that crowded upon my mind on that the 
gloomiest day in my life's history were not calculated to 
make a man shout as loud as a Methodist at a first-class camp 
meeting. County devastated ; real estate all converted into 
Confederate bonds, and no Confederacy! Stock eat up; 
negroes fled ; the toils and cares of two- thirds of a life's 
struggle with poverty — crowned at last with success — now, 
when the sun of life had passed its meridian height, and 
hastening on to its setting, all gone ! and I standing amidst 
its blighted and pitiful wreck. All vanished like mist before 
the rising sun — flat broke ; nothing to do ; nothing to do it 
with, and an abundance of help to do it ! Indeed, I might 
venture to say, without indulging in hjrperbole, surplus 
help. Wife, two negro women, and eight children; and 
al^ut everybody else; one bovine, and fifteen dollars; 
short inventory of available assets ; not much trouble to 
count — no skill in book-keeping needed. Standing 
under the dark clouds, listening to the deep- toned, 
distant thunder, gazing on the streaked lightning flashes, 
the rush and roar of the howling storm as it whirled the 
debris of a wrecked fortune beyond the range of vision. 
I turned my disturbed thoughts for consolation to the part 
of a quarter of a century actively spent in trying to do 
good ; preaching day and night, through sunshine and 
showers, calms and storms ; laborious days, months and 
years of mental, moral and physical toil. I had, I trust, 
turned many from darkness to light. But the outlook was 

22 



338 casket's book. 

gloom, darkness, tempest, and widespread desolation. Oh, 
how many of my fondly-loved spiritual children quietly slept, 
without coffins or shrouds, in far- distant and unvisited 
graves ! How many had lost faith in God, when the cause 
which they believed was right, and which they fondly 
loved, went down in a sea of blood. Our chaplains prophe- 
sied success as among the certainties, since our cause 
was right, and God was on the side of right ; therefore, the 
right was bound to triumph. I told them that they were 
sowing the seeds from which an abundant harvest of infi- 
delity would be garnered in the event that our cause went 
under ; that I did not believe that God had anything to do 
with the accursed thing from beginning to end on either side ; 
that final victory would depend on courage, skill, numbers, 
and the heaviest guns best handled ; that right and wrong 
would not weigh as much as a feather in the scale. It 
turned out as I knew it must, and many for whom I had 
toiled had been hopelessly demoralized by the influences 
thrown around them in camp and field, and for the time 
being were religious wrecks. The plow-share of ruin 
had run its furrows as deep in this field as the others, and as 
bitter a pang was felt as that produced by those was from 
the thought that the cause was lost — the cause I then 
believed to be right, and yet believe it ; the cause on which 
I had periled all, and to which I had given the love of my 
heart, strong as the love of woman. All lost ! What had 
I left to cheer my poor sad heart? Nothing but a con- 
sciousness of what to me was sacred — duty faithfully 
discharged. I had done the very best I could. During 
the whole struggle I had sang, prayed, preached, exhorted, 
and occasionally got pugnacious and shouldered a Colt's 
sixteen-shooter, and pitched into the fight; and now I 
am afraid somebody got hurt! This, an item of experi- 



AN OLD preacher's EXPERIENCE. 339 

ence, not after but during the war, that I would gladly blot 
from memory's page, I hope with Uncle Toby, in " Tristram 
Shandy ^^^ that when the recording angel set down the charge 
against me he dropped a tear of pity on the page and blotted 
it out. 

I had served the sick and wounded on both sides, pro- 
tected prisoners from insult and wrong, administered to 
their wants, living, and dying so far as I could. I had 
saved thousands of the lives of our men by good nursing and 
the best of medical attention. My noble State furnished 
the money — one hundred thousand dollars ; the aid societies 
poured in their thousands; patriotic men, who could not 
mingle in the strife, and who desired to aid their cause, 
flocked to the hospitals, of which I had four, and nursed day 
and night without money and without price. I had given 
the enemy the best fight I had on hand, and came out badly 
whipped, so badly that I have not felt like fighting since. If 
ever I fight any more it will be personal, and under protest 
at that, and with pretty near a certainty that I come out 
best. But I find I am rather inclined to advance backwards 
and linger over my experience during the war. Some for- 
ward movements are not as pleasant to take as backward 
ones ; but pleasant or unpleasant I must leave Meridian, for 
a number of good and substantial reasons, only one of which 
need here be given, and that is I had nothing to stay there 
on, and could not find anybody in all the place whose heart 
and purse was sufficiently expanded to take us all in and take 
good care of us ; so I sold my only cow, that gave an abun- 
dance of milk for her own calf, and for mine both white and 
black ; gathered up what little household furniture we had 
brought from our country home on my partner's farm; 
borrowed a little money and took passage on a miser- 
able poor car for Jackson. I believe the first relief 



340 casket's book. 

to my pent up feelings was experienced by getting up a big 
mad. It created a diversion, produced a sensation. I got 
gloriously mad ; that is, if there is any such a mad as that. 
I got mad all over, inside and outside, right side and wrong 
side, top side and bottom side ; had I been blind in one eye, 
I doubt not I would have been mad on the blind side and 
seeing side, too. Oh ! I did get terribly mad ; mad at every 
thing, and every body ; mad at the Yankee Nation, and at 
every thing that began or ended with a " y," or even had a 
** y " in the middle ; mad at our people who skulked in the 
hour of trial ; mad at the poor dead Confederate Congress, 
because they did not do as I begged them to do — set free ! 
three hundred thousand of our slave men in 1863, put guns 
in their hands, manly pride in their hearts and put them into 
the fight ! Well, I could not think of anything but that it 
made me madder ! I verily believe that if I had thought of 
the angel Gabriel, I would have gotten mad at the length of 
his wings. I am glad I did not ; and right here I am going 
to stop for fear the old mad come back again ! Poor, stum- 
bling, foolish mortal ; God help, guide and save us all! 



WJrl^ 



WE ARE 



In 1875, there being no house that kept in stock 
all the publications of the Christian Brotherhood, we 
commenced business with that end in view. 

So well have we sncceeded that we are now uni- 
versally known among the Christian Brotherhood as 

That idea shall be constantly kept in view, and 
with our greatly increased facilities we hope to fully 
satisfy the enlarged demand of our many patrons. 

Not publishing any series of S. S. Papers we shall 
continue to supply any in the market. Samples fur- 
nished free. 

Your orders are not only solicited for the goods 
enumerated in this catalogue but anything else you 
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Prices may change without notice. We charge 
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Always address 

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717 & 719 Olive Street, ST. LOUIS, MO. 



John Burns' Catalogue, 



BAXTER, WILLIAM. 

liife of Elder Walter Scott, with sketches of his fellow-laborers, 
William Hayden, Adamson Bentley, John Henry and others. Steel 
portrait. 450 pages $2 00 

life of Knowles Shaw. This thrilling and intensely interesting 
biography of this great Evangelist and Christian worker, who has 
brought more souls into the fold of Christ than any one man in the 
Reformation. Cloth, price 1 25 

BRADEN, CLARK. 

Braden and Hughey Debate, Baptism ; The Action, Design and 
Subjects of, and the work of the Holy Spirit. I vol., 8vo, 687 pages. 2 50 

Th.e Problem of Problems. By Clark Braden. This book should 
be in the hands of every preacher and believer of the Scriptures. 
It states briefly the demands of the problem for which Evolution 
and Darwinism undertake to give a solution. It shows the relation 
of Religion and Science, and especially Geology, to the statements 
of the Scriptures. Price 2 00 

BRENTS, DR. T. W. 

The Gospel Plan of Salvation. 12mo, cloth, 667 pages 2 50 

BUTLER, MARIE R. 

Biverside ; or. Winning a Soul. 12mo, 174 pages, cloth, illustrated 75 

Grandma's Patience ; or, Mrs. James' Christmas Gift 32mo. clotk 
illustrated 40 



JOHN BURNS' CATALOGUE. 



BURNETT, DAVID STAATS. 

The Christian Sunday-School Library. New edition, with new illus- 
trations, written and published expressly for Christian Sunday Schools 
and Christian families. 



Goodness of God. 
Miracles of Christ. 
Childhood of Jesus. 
Great Preachers. Parti. 
Part 2. 
Young Teachers. 2 Vols. 
The Air we Breathe. 
Our Duties. 
Mary and Martha. 
Old Testament Facts. 
Rare Testimony. 
Mate rnal Influence. 
The Great Teacher. 
Uncle Harlin' s Voyages, 2 Vols. 
Week- Day Readings. 2 Vols. 
History of David. 
Law of Love. 
Apostle Peter. 
Battle of Life. 
Plea for Sunday Schools. 
Searching the Scriptures, 

The books are neatly and substantially bound in cloth, with gilt 
back. Fifty books in forty volumes, 32mo, cloth $12 00 



Americans in Jerusalem. 3 Vols. 

Lessons for Teachers. 

Law of Beneficence. 

The Israelite, 

Lectures for Children. 

Our Lord and Saviour. 

Jesus is the Christ. 

Broken Household. 

Weeping and Tears. 

History of Jesus. Part 1. 

" " Part 2. 

" " Parts. 

The Chinese. 3 Vols. 
Wonders of the Atmosphere. 
Fanny Manning. 
God's Goodness. 
Vegetable Creation. 2 Vols. 
Outward Man. 
Life of Paul, 
The Happy Day. 
Evidences of Christianity. 



SPECIAIi INDUCEMENTS. 

To all purchasers of libraries, I will give a discount corresponding to 
the amount invested. 

Every school should have a circulating library of carefully selected 
books, free from the errors of sectarianism and infide lity, and adapted to 
the real wants of the readers. 

I will make it my aim to make a selection suited to the wants of our 
brethren. I can supply, to order, anything needed in this line. See pages 
67-69. 

CAMPBELL, ALEXANDER. 

The Christian System, in reference to the Union of Christians and 
a Restoration of Primitive Christianity as plead in the Current Re- 
formation. By A. Campbell. 12mo, 358 pages, cloth $ 1 50 

A Debate on the Roman Catholic Religion, held in Cincinnati, 
O., between Alexander Campbell and Right Rev. John B. Purcell, 
Bishop of Cincinnati. Taken down by reporters and revised by the 
parties. 12mo, 360 pages 1 50 



Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell, together with a brief Mem- 
oir of Mrs. Jane Campbell. By A. Campbell. 12mo, 319 pages 1 25 



Familiar lioctures on the Pentateuch, delivered before the Morn- 
ing Class of Bethany College, during the session of 1859-60, by A. 
Campbell ; also short extracts from his sermons during the same 
session, to which is prefixed a sketch of the Life of President Camp- 
bell. Edited by W. T. Moore 1 60 



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Some works are designed to assist those who have com- 
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28 



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